



A 




BIOGRAPHICAL HISTORY 



OF THE 



CLASS OF 1868, 



J^t?r the first decade following their Graduation. 



SECOND DISTRICT NORMAL SCHOOL, 



MILLERSYTLLE, PA. 



i 



^ 



J. ZEAMER, Historian. 



Printed by W. Hayes Griee, 

"Herald," Columbia, Pa., 

JULY, 1878. 



v^'- 







^ 



A 



BIOGRAPHICAL HISTORY 



OF THE 



CLASS OF 18(38, 

For the first decade following their Graduation. 

SECOND DISTRICT NORMAL SCHOOL, 
MILLERSVILLE, PA. 



J. ZEAMER, Historian. 



Printed by W. Hayes Grier, 

"Hebald," Columbia, Pa., 

JULY, 1878. 



DR. EDWARD BROOKS. 

THE SCHOLAR, AUTHOR, AND EDUCATOR, 

THE CLASS OF 1868, 

MOST RESPECTFULLY 

INSCRIBE THIS LITTLE VOLIIMK 

AS A TESTIMONIAL OF THEIR ESTEEM. 



preface. 



In a conversation with a classmate several years ago, it was care- 
lessly remarked that it would be a good thing to publish a small 
book, containing our graduating essays, orations, and our history. 
It was merely the expression of a stray idea, and at that time neither 
expected it ever to be realized. The years rolled by, and our 
labors of collecting the history began. Letters from the different 
members of the class came straggling in, and one from distant Kansas 
suggested that the work be published, so each might know where 
the others were, and what they had done since our separation. 
This suggestion was enlarged upon, and communicated to the others. 
All approved it in some form, and quite a number were enthusi- 
astic in its favor. In that way it had its humble origin ; here, it is 
full grown, and modestly does it ask a welcome from those who 
may be interested in the class of 1868. 

Our labors of finding the whereabouts of the different members of 
the class, began last March. Time had scattered them. Ten years 
ago they were " opposites " at the Normal tables; they are still 
"opposites," but States, seas, and the world are between them. 
Scores of postal cards were sent out to them, and to persons who 
were thought likely to know something of them. After these, were 
sent scores of letters containing the most pitiful appeals for infor- 
mation. These reached them direct, or through some friend, or 
were returned, but many were never answered. Some responded 
promptly, but the larger number, apparently with reluctance, as 
though they considered the historian over-officious, and meant to 
teach him better manners by cool treatment. He is of the average 
hopeful temperament, yet discouragement very nearly overcame 
him in this work. Once he had almost concluded to give it up, 
and enjoy his leisure in a cheaper and less laborious style, but his 
selfish desire for success spurred him on, and here are the results of 
his ambition. Had the cooperation of his classmates been more 
free, prompt, and hearty, his labors would have been lighter, his 
temper sweeter, the history more of a success, and they would all 



CLASS OF i86S. 



now be better satisfied. As the work was not written for gain — its 
profit-factor proving a minus quantity — it is hoped that its readers 

will 

Be to its virtues very kind, 
Be to its faults a little blind. 

When its author writes a book to sell, he will not seek immunity 
from literary dissection, but for the last four months he has been 
entirely absorbed in the service of his classmates, and has not had 
time to think of a last will and testament, or other preliminaries to 
literal annihilation, and hence hopes for charitable treatment. 

J. Z. 

Columbia, Pa.,y>//v 29, 1878. 




SECOND DISTRICT NORMAL SCHOOL. 



faculty, 1815 7-8, 



Principal. 
Edward Brooks, A. M. 

Professor of Latin, Greek, and English Grammar. 
A. R. BvERLY, A. M. 

Professor of Mathematics. 
C. H. Harding. 

Professor of Natural Sciences. 
Thomas R. Baker, M. S. 

Superintendent of Model School. 
J. V. Montgomery. 

Professor of German. 
S. Z. Sharp. 

Assistant in Mathematics. 
W. U. Brewer. 

Assistant in Teaching and Matliematics. 
H. G. Rush. 

Teacher of History and Geography. 
Jennie E. Leonard. 

Teaclier of Elocution. 
Eliza G. Smith. 

Teacher of English Grammar and French. 
Annie E. Hartman. 

Assistant in Mathematics. 
Sallie E. Hudson. 



CLASS OF i86S. 



Teacher of Music. 
Lottie E. Tillman. 

Steward and Superintendent of Grounds and Buildings. 
Samuel G. Behmer. 

Matron. 
Mrs. Eliz.'VBETH Wirshing. 

Committee on Final Examination. 

J. P. WiCKERSHAM, Superintendent Common Schools. 
F. A. Allen, Principal Fifth Normal School District. 
J. A. Cooper, Principal Twelfth Normal School District. 
John S. Ermentrout, Principal Third Normal School District. 
S. B. Heiges, Superintendent of York county. 
David Evans, Superintendent of Lancaster county. 






1 


SECOND DISTRICT NORMAL SCHOOL. 9 


1878. 05va(Tuatcd (Tlass. i878. 


Scientific Course. 


G. W. Obekholtzee, C. E., 


. Sioux City, Iowa. 


Elementary Course. 


Anna R. Ball, 


. Hatboro', Pa. 


Laura C. B. Prather, . . 


. Cliambersbiirg, Pa. 


Hattie I. Bruckart, 


Litiz, Pa. 


Maggie S. Davis, .... 


. 524 N. Forty-fourth St., Phila., Pa. 


Mattie M. Fore, .... 


. Burnt Cabins, Pa. 


Rachie J. Hudson, . . . 


. Tokio, Japan. 


E. Hattie Jones, 


Topeka, Kansas. 


Fannie D. James, .... 


. Baltimore, Md. 


Nancy Johnston Douglas, 


. Shirley, 111. 


i Bell Johnston. 


. Allegheny City, Pa. 


.Annie L. Field, .... 


. Darby, Pa. 


R.A.CHIE P. Frey, . . 


. Sioux City, Iowa. 


Sallie J. Richards, . . . 


. Talladega, Ala. 


Mary S. Verlenden, 


. Darby, Pa. 


Maggie Steacv Dungan, . 


. Halifax, Pa. 


Dr. H. C. Bartleson, . . 


. 5902 Baltimore avenue, Phila., Pa. 


J. N. Barr, M. E., ... 


. Altoona, Pa. 


Rev. W. W. Cook, . . . 


. Manayunk, Pa. 


Watson Cornell, .... 


. 2020 N. Tenth street, Phila., Pa. 


G. H. Desch, Supt., . . . 


. Allentown, Pa. 


VV. C. Evans, Att'y-at-law, 


. Norristown, Pa. 


A. D. Eisenhower, . . 


. Norristown, Pa. 


Rev. I. M. Gable, . . . 


. Guthriesville, Pa. 


B. F. Hudson, Att'y-at-law, 


. .-^TcHiNSON, Kansas. 


E. O. Lyte, 


. Millersville, Pa. 


George Marsden, ... 


. Pennfield, Pa. 


D. McMullen, Att'y-at-law, 


. Lancaster, Pa. 


W. S. McPherkan, . . 


. Brookville, Pa. 


W. F. Overholt, .... 


. Rising Sun, Md. 


B. C: Rich, 


. Ellis, Kansas. 


George C. Ruth, . . 


. Millville, Pa. 


Rev. G. H. Slaybaugh, 


. New Kingston, Pa, 


W. D. Weaver, Att'y-at-law, 


. Lancaster, Pa. 


J. Zeamer, 


. Columbia, Pa. 


1 





10 CLASS OF tSbS. 


1868. Oivaduatiucj OTlass. 


1868. 


Scientific Course, 




G. W. Oberholtzer, .... Lionville, Pa. 




Elementary Course. 




Anna R. Bye, Buckingham, Pa. 




Laur.\ C. Brewer, .... Greencastle, Pa. 




Hattie I. Bruckart, . , . Litiz, Pa. 




Maggie S. Davis, Haverford, Pa. 


- 


Mattie M. Fore, McConnellsburg, Pa. 




Rachie J, Hudson, .... Hopewell Cotton Works, 


Pa. 


E. Hattie Haves Aberdeen, Md. 




Fannie D. James, Baltimore, Md. 




Nancy Johnston, Allegheny City, Pa. 




Bell Johnston, Allegheny City, Pa. 




Annie E. Lincoln Kingsessing, Pa. 




Rachie T. Pierce, Millersville, Pa. 




Sallie J. Richards, .... Darby, Pa. 




Mary W. Serrill, Darby, Pa. 




Maggie E. Steacy, .... Sterling, III. 




H. C. Bartleson, ..... Pleasantville, Md. 




J. N. Barr, Strasburg, Pa. 




W. W. Cook, Richboro', Pa. 




Watson Cornell, Richboro', Pa. 




G. Harry Desch, Spinnerstown, Pa. 




W. C. Evans, Pottstown, Pa. 




A. D. Eisenhower, .... Newburg, Pa. 




I. M. Gable, Windsor, Pa. 




B. F. Hudson, Hopewell Cotton Works 


Pa. 


Eliphalet Oram Lyte, . . Enterprise, Pa. 




George Marsden, East Sharpsburg, Pa. 




D. McMullen, Mount Hope, Pa. 




W. Scott McPherran, . . . Spruce Creek, Pa. 




W. F. Overholt, Wrightsdale, Pa. 




B. C. Rich, Three Tons, Pa. 




George C. Ruth, . ... Buckingham, Pa. 


• 


G. H. Slaybaugh, Menallen, Pa. 




Edward Stover, Middletown, Pa. 




W. D. Weaver, ■ . Terre Hill, Pa. 




J. Zeamer, Mechanicsburg, Pa. 




1 



SECOND DISTRICT NORMAL SCHOOL. 



W 



^tixtc itovmul i«chcii.il (Commencement 



MillersvUle, Pa,., Thursday, July 16, 1868. 



Morning Session.— 9 o'clock. 



PRAYER. 

MUSIC. 
Chorus — " Come Friend.'i, and join our Song." 
Salutatory Essay — You are wanted at the Front, 

Laura C. Brewer. 
Oration — Santa Filoniena, . . ■ Edward Stover. 

MUSIC. 
Piano Duet — Le.^ Gardes ^'alt^. 

Essay — Social Errors, Rachie T. Peirce. 

Oration — We Live in Deeds, W. C. Evans. 

MUSIC. 

Q,VAViTETTE—"Eva7igeHne." 

Oration — The Levellers of Society, L M. Gable. 

Essay — Alters of Sacrifice, ALattie M. Fore. 

Oration — Ups and Downs of Lite, George Marsden. 

MUSIC. 
Piano Solo — Concert March. 

Essay — Within the Fold, Maggie S. Davis. 

Oration — All is Lost but Honor, Watson Cornell. 

MUSIC. 
Duet — "7n the Starlight." 

Oration — Our Nation's Growth, B. C. Rich. 

Essay — Take thy Banner, Belle Johnston. 

Oration — Royal Within, G. H. Slaybaugh. 



12 CLASS OF iS6S. 



MUSIC. 
Piano Ddet — Les Dames de Seville. 

Essay — Longing Rachie J. Hudson. 

Oration — Erin Mavourneen, J. N. Barr. 

MUSIC. 
QuAETKTTK — "<S'a??2/ Ann's Aivay." 

Oration — Mind Products, W. F. Overholt. 

Essay — The Rainbow on the Cloud, Nancy Johnston. 

Oration — The World Moves, VV. Scott McPhekran. 

MUSIC. 
Piano Duet — Leiriaies Kla.nge Waltz. 

Essay — The Ideal, Annie E. Lincoln. 

Oration — Nature Reflects God, G. Harry Desch. 

MUSIC. 
Chorus — " The Burl; be/ore the Gale." 



Afternoon Session.—! 1-2 o'clock. 



MUSIC. 

Chorus — "Awake Sweet Music's Gentle Strain." 

Salutatory Essay — Consecration, ... . Maggie E. Steacy. 

Oration — The Teacher's Harvest, G. C. Ruth. 

MUSIC. 
Orchestra — "Cottage by the Sea " Medley. 

Essay — We are Climbing Upward, Sallie J. Richards. 

Oration — Inspiration , W. W. Cook. 

MUSIC. 

Quartette — " Leaf by Leaf the Roses Fall." 

Oration — Our Monuments, B. F. Hudson. 

Essay — A Light in the Window, Hattie I. Bruckart. 

Oration — Tidal Waves, . D. McMullen. 



SECOND DISTRICT NORMAL SCHOOL. 13 

MUSIC. 
Orchestra — Polomita Oallop. 

Essay — Nothing to Wear, Anna R. Bye. 

Oration — The Cross and the Crescent, .... W. D. Weaver. 

MU.SIC. 
Violin and Piano — iSclcctionsfrom Somnambiila. 

Essay — Woman's Work, Fanny D. James. 

Oration — Westward Ho ! J. Zeamer. 

JIUSIC. 

Qr.ARTETTE — "Sliding on the Door." 

Essay — Ships in Port, Mary W. Serrill. 

Oration — The World Bows to Truth, . . . . H. C. Bartleson. 
Ess.AY — In the Beginning E. Hattie Hayes. 

MUSIC. 

ORf'HESTRA — PaJkn 'K3S." 

PRESENTATION OF DIPLOMAS. 
MUSIC. 

Q,o.4.RTETTE — " Then You'll Remember Me." 

Valedictory Oration — The Voyage of Life, . A. D. Eisenhower. 

MUSIC. 

Chorus — "Away We 60." 

ADDRESS TO THE GRADUATING CLASS. 

MUSIC. 

Orchestra — Old F'olk.'^ Quadrille. 

Adjournment. 



14 CLASS OF r86S. 



Mrs. ANN/^ R. BALL, of Hatboro. Pa. 

After leaving the Normal, was appointed a teacher of a public 
school near Forestville, Bucks county. Her pupils here were all 
boys during the greater part of the session, the little girls of the 
neighborhood, according to a time-honored custom, remaining at 
home after the first fall of snow. When she closed in the spring, 
William T. Seal offered her a situation in a private school, also for 
boys, at Attleboro'. Here she taught one year, and had entered 
upon her duties for the second year, when her health failed, and 
she resigned and went home. She did not think of teaching again 
for some time, but our classmate, Hattie Bruckart, wrote to her 
from Wilkes-Barre, and asked her to come and fill a vacancy there. 
She went, and for seven months taught as one of the assistants in 
the Franklin Grammar School of that place, which term of service 
ended her career as teacher. She taught two years, but did not 
receive her master diploma, as part of that time was spent in a pri- 
vate institution. She always had a warm affection for children, 
and as she gained experience in her profession, she learned to love 
the life of the teacher. 

A few weeks after leaving school, in 1868, she met with Mr. 
Samuel Carey Ball, and an attachment was formed — you know your- 
selves howit isdone. Upon Christmas day, in 1871, they were mar- 
ried in the Episcopal Church in Doylestown, and the following 
spring were both confirmed as members of that Church. They have 
two children, Frank, aged five, and Nellie, three years. The son 
is an observing, modest lad, and Nellie, a very affectionate child, 
but the mother modestly declines giving us further information 
about them, lest if we ever should meet them, her judgment, in our 
estimation, might be considered unreliable. She expressively quotes 
from the Crow's ballad ; 

"How good and fair her children are. 
None but a parent knows." 

She has not met us in our reunion, l)ut asked us to bear- her kind 
remembrance and best wishes to all her schoolmates and teachers. 

Many of her classmates know, that within the past two years a 
great burden of sorrow has fallen to her lot ; the heavens were as 



SECOND DISTRICT NORMAL SCHOOL, 



15 



brass, and the cruel iron entered her soul, but the Great Father of 
us all, hi his infinite mercy, ha= borne her through it, and left her 
with health and reason unimpaired. 

^^'heu we shall reach tlie shining strand. 

Of the distant fatherland. 
We shall know 
In the happiness unending, m 

What our life-work meant below. 



LAURA BREWER PRATHER. of Chambersburg. Pa. 

Thinks to write one's own history, especially when you have none, 
as women never do, is altogether stupid work. She even seems to 
regret not having been swallowed up in an earthquake, or wafted 
off seventeen times higher than the moon by a cyclone, so she 
might have a wonderful history to record. Ten years ago she left 
the Normal with the rest of us, commissioned for the teacher's work, 
and with the full intention of engaging at it. On arriving at Green- 
castle, her home, she found a handsome new brick school-house, 
just finished, ready for occupation, and the teachers for the different 
departments already selected, with the exception of the principal's 
immediate assistant. This position was offered her. She gladly 
accepted it, and for four successive years she continued in it; at 
the end of which time the schools underwent a change, and she bid 
adieu to the profession. Since then she has never resumed teach- 
ing, but avers that every hour she ever spent in the school-room was 
one of enjoyment, and regards her professional experience as of 
great value in fitting her for the more active duties of life. 

She has twice visited the Normal. The first time, two years after 
our graduation, when she applied for and received her diploma; 
the next lime, upon the occasion of her serving as secretary of the 
Normal Society anniversary. Several years ago she was elected as 
essayist for the anniversary of that society, but was unable to attend. 

Since she quit teaching, six years ago. she has spent some time in 
traveling through the North and West, and acknowledges having 
led an easy, indolent life, entirely too much so for the healthy 
growth of the good resolutions formed at school, which now rise up 
like phantoms to mock her. 

Owing to the locality she resides in, she has met but few of her 
classmates and schoolmates, but had the pleasure of meeting Pro- 



16 CLASS OF iS6S. 



fessors Brooks and Montgomery last fall, at the Franklin County 
Teachers' Institute. Within the last year she married, Init does not 
say whom. However, as she signs her name Prather, we are quite 
safe, and certainly justified in presuming, that it is some happy 
fellow of that name. 



HATT/E IRENE BRUCKART, of Litiz. Pa. 

In September, 1868, became teacher of a grammar school in Co- 
lumbia, Pa. Here she continued teaching until in February, 1870, 
when she received a call from Wilkes-Barre, which she considered 
imperative, and immediately resi'gned to answer the call. She con- 
tinued teaching in Wilkes-Barre, until in the summer of 1873. The 
following August she took a school in Strasburg, Lancaster county, 
but on account of poor health, was obliged to quit the position be- 
fore the close of the term. After a long rest, she took a graded 
school at Silver Springs, Lancaster county, the chief inducements 
here being good pay and a short term. The Fall of 1875 fi"'^^ her 
again in Strasburg, where she remained a year, and before finishing 
the term, she was elected teaclxer of the grammar school of Litiz, 
which position she accepted and still holds. Recently she has had 
several calls from the West, but home interests will not permit her 
to accept. 

So far as circumstances permitted, she claims to have been strictly 
conscientious in her choice of schools, always accepting the situa- 
tions which promised the highest pecuniary remuneration, and the 
greatest advantages, socially and otherwise. We agree with her, in 
that such self-sacrificing and unselfish a course commends itself, but 
as she still pines in loneliness, we very much doubt whether her 
j-£7na/ advantages were what they might have been. Her reasons, 
however, for not being married, are the same as old Miss Beswicks : 
" Them as offered themselves I didn't want, and them as I'd a had 
didn't offer." Such is life. Still the symptoms are favorable. She 
has not yet contracted the proverbial veneration for cats, and so 
long as that disposition can be kept down, the case is a hopeful one. 

Her feeling for our Alma Mater is strong and marked. Since 
our graduation, she has not missed attendance upon a single com- 
mencement, and although Mr. Brooks has never said so, yet she 
claims to know that he considers her presence one of the necessary 
features of a successful commencement. In 1870, she, in absence 



SECOND DISTRICT NORMAL SCHOOL. 17 

f 

of the regularly appointed secretary of the Alumni, was selected to 
act in that capacity. 

Oh woman ! in our hours of ease, 

Uncertain, coy, and hard to jjlease, 
And variable as tlie sliade 

By the light-quivering aspen made ; 
When pain and anguish ring the brow, 

A ministering angel thou. 

Miss MAGGIE S. DAVIS, of Philadelphia, 

On leaving school after graduation, took a pleasure trip through the 
coal regions of Pennsylvania., but we did not learn whether she ex- 
plored the dreary depths of the mines, although it is quite evident 
she had the courage necessary for such an emergency, or she would 
not have risked her life in the country of the Mollie Maguires. In 
the fall, in company with our classmate, Fannie D. James, she started 
in search of a school, meaning business. After some effort, she suc- 
ceeded in getting one in New Garden, Chester county, where she 
taught one term. While on a visit to the Normal, in the summer of 
i86g, she met her friend and room-mate, with whom she, the follow- 
ing fall, started for Wilkes-Barre, where, with two of our classmates 
as fellow teachers, she taught through a term of ten months. During 
the summer of 1870, she again visited the Normal. 

In the fall of 1S70, she took charge of a school at Unionville, 
Chester county, and, after the expiration of her term here, she bade 
adieu to the profession, and retired to her home in West Philadel- 
phia, where she has since been living in single blessedness. 

Miss M. MATT IE FORE, of Norway, Chester Oouniy, Pa. 

In September, after graduating, commenced teaching in the anthra- 
cite coal regions of Pennsylvania. She had comparatively little ex- 
perience to start on, but what she lacked in experience she made up 
in beautiful theory, which seems to have brought success, for, after 
a term of nine months, her patrons most urgently solicited her to 
open a summer school. This she did, with one hundred and twenty- 
five pupils. The following fall she again took the same situation, 
but before the term e.xpired she found that the breaking in of the 
" breaker boys " would be at the breaking down of her health, so 
she reluctantly resigned the great work, with the hope that a few 



18 CLASS OF tSbS. 



good seeds had fallen from her hand into good ground. After rest- 
ing a few months, she was again ready for the duties of the school- 
room. In the fall and winter of 1870 and 1871, she taught a term 
in North Coventry, Chester county. Upon closing her labors here 
in the spring, she repaired to the mountains for the purpose of re- 
gaining her health, and remained there until September, 1872, when 
she returned to Chester county again, this time to take the school 
at Norway, which situation she retained two years, when she re- 
signed for the purpose of taking a year's rest. 

Only a few months of the year had elapsed, however, when the 
directors of the same district wrote for her to come and finish the 
unexpired term of one of their teachers who had resigned. She 
yielded, and again assumed the teacher's duties, finding the school- 
room pleasant and homelike. In the spring of 1876, she met with 
the first great sorrow of her life, in the loss of eight of her nearest 
and dearest friends, wliich, with the . exhaustive duties of the pre- 
vious session, so completely prostrated her as to render it again ne- 
cessary for her to retire to the mountains in the search of health. 
Not deriving any material benefits, she, as a last resort, traveled for 
almost a year, spending the winter of 1876-77, in the States of Iowa 
and Missouri. 

She had given up all thought of ever entering the school-room 
again professionally, but the conviction had hardly time to take 
root when the directors of her old district wrote for her to come and 
finish an unexpired term of a few weeks in her old school at Nor- 
way, Chester county. 

The reunion, she says, would have afforded her much pleasure, 
but, before the time for it arrived, she expected to leave Pennsyl- 
vania for the West, in consequence of which arrangement she could 
not attend. 

MissR/\CHEL J. HUDSON, of Tokio. Japan, 

In Septeniber following our graduation, accepted a situation as teacher 
in the Mt. Joy Orphan School, which she retained for two and a 
half years. After leaving here, she spent one summer at her home 
in Chester county, and then took a school at Safe Harbor, Lancas- 
ter county, where she remained three years, during which time she 
fitted some of her pupils for the D. division of the Millersville Nor- 
mal School, where several have since graduated. She also re-organ- 
ized a Good Templar's lodge which had almost expired, and succeeded 



SECOND D/STR/CT NORMAL SCHOOL. 



19 



in inducing many persons to join the order. Besides this, she labored 
successfully and faithfully in the M. E. church of the place, and by 
thus actively exerting herself in these various spheres of usefulness, 
she acquired an experience that helped her to prepare for the grand 
field of labor she is now engaged in. Upon leaving Safe Harbor, 
she accepted the situation of teacher of the public school of Millers- 
ville, where she could pursue the study of some of the higher 
branches to advantage, and during the summer following she studied 
and taught in the Normal school. After this, for one year, she con- 
ducted a Friend's private school at Rising Sun, Maryland. For 
many years her solicitude for human souls, and her zeal to serve God 
earnestly and effectually, led her to contemplate a mission to heathen 
lands, so she might carry the Gospel to those who dwelt in spiritual 
darkness. In God's providence she was called by the Evangelical 
Methodist Church of America to become a member of their first 
missionary band to Japan. Quite early in life she had juined the 
Presbyterian Church, which had been the Church of her ancestors for 
many generations, but she ceased her connection with this much 
loved organization, and under the auspices of the E. M. Church, in 
company with three other missionaries, sailed from San Francisco in 
November, 1876, for Japan. After an eventful and stormy voyage 
of twenty-five days they, landed at Yokahama, where she remained 
one year studying the Japanese language and engaging in such mis- 
sionary work as opportunity afforded. Since then she has resided at 
Tokio, the capital of the empire, where she is engaged at the study 
of the Japanese language, conducting Bible classes and prayer meet- 
ings in both Japanese and English, and corresponding for three or 
four papers and magazines. Her health was so impaired by over- 
work that she was compelled to cease her labors for a while, and the 
month of May of the present year she spent with Mr. and Mrs. 
Correll, former students of Millersville. When last heard from, she 
was again in excellent health and busily engaged at her work. 

This is a rare, noble, most self-sacrificing and devoted instance of 
consecration to duty and to God. Well may the class of 1S68 be 
proud of her example. The rest of us have remained in the fair land 
of our birth, near home and friends, striving for wealth and fame and 
honor, where pleasure, comfort, and profit allure and enchant, where 
want is comparatively unknown and sorrow and distress are ever 
soothed by Christian sympathy, and healed by the loving hand of 
Christian charity ; but our sister spurns them all, and braving the 



20 ■ ■ CLASS OF j868. 



dangers of the perilous seas, hies to the uttermost ends of the earth, 
that she may spend her Hfe for the poor unfortunate beings who 
have not yet heard of the Christ whom slie so faithfully serves. Let 
our prayers be that God in His infinite love and mercy may ever 
keep and prosper her. 

Thy name shall be remembered when sluill die 

The name of many a warrior of renown, 
For thou on nobler fields gain'dst victorj', 

And won from history a glorious crown. 

Mi^s. E. H ATT IE JONES, of Topeka, Kansas, 

Graduated, as you will by some association of ideas probably re- 
member, at the IVIillersville State Normal School, in 1868. She im- 
mediately after this event went to Maryland, where she remained 
enjoying herself generally imtil the latter part of the following 
winter term, when she again returned to the Normal. She spent 
three terms here, studying some, painting some, teaching some, and 
loafing considerable. At the end of this time she seized her grip- 
sack, shook tlie dust from her moccasins, and the place that had 
known her so long knew her no more. She taught a private school 
at Penningtonville, Chester county, tor a term of eiglit months. 
Then she was appointed principal of the high school at Parkesburg, 
Chester county, where she taught one year. Then she married 
Howell Jones, and early in 1872 she went west, to Topeka, Kansas, 
where she has remained ever since, and most dearly does she love 
her western home, with its boundless prairies and its bluest of skies. 
She has two little children, girls, to which she is most devotedly 
attached. We also learned, incidentally, that lier husband is con- 
sidered a leading member of the Topeka bar, and that a number of 
Kansas papers speak of him favorably as an available candidate for 
Lieutenant Governor. 

Love watches o'er m,>' quiet ways, 

Kind voices speak my name. 
And lips that find it hard to i^raise 

Are slow, at least, to blame. 

Miss FANNY D. JAMES, of Baltimore, Maryland, 

Launched from the graduating platform into a summer's sea of 
pleasant recreation, after which she obtained a situation as teacher 



SECOND DISTRICT NORMAL SCHOOL. 21 

at Salunga, Lancaster county. Here she put in an experience of 
six months, whicli was to lier novel in the extreme, at one time came 
very near drowning by breaking through the ice while skating. 
Closing her labors the following spring, she retired to the shades of 
her Normal home, there to assume the responsible title of "resident 
graduate," and it is needless to say that she bore the honor all the 
summer through without impairing her health or the vivacity of her 
spirits. From the fall of 1869 to June, 1870, she taught in the city 
of Wilkes-Barre. A portion of the following summer she spent very 
pleasantly on Staten Island, New York, enjoying the honor and 
pleasure of making several trips up the Hudson river. She also spent 
some time during 1870 and 187 1 at her home in the city of Balti- 
more. In the fall of 1872, she went to Clearfield, Pa., where she 
taught in a select school of young ladies, with Miss Hattie Swan, 
who was formerly a student of Millersville. Here she spent a de- 
lightful year. The following winter she spent in Baltimore. In the 
spring of 1874, she had an attack of the " Westward, Ho !" fever, 
and indulged to find relief. She visited the city of St. Louis 
for three months, then went to Topeka, Kansas, where she re- 
mained four months. The following September she came back to 
Clearfield, where she taught in the public schools for one )"ear, and 
would have continued longer, but in 1875 the directors were seized 
with an inordinate fit of economy, and reduced the salary to a point 
much below what she considered the value of her services, so she 
declined in favor of some one else. Since then she has not been 
teaching. During the summer of 1876 she visited our mutual friend 
and classmate, Maggie S. Davis, at Philadelpliia, and while there 
enjoyed the Centennial Exhibition no less than twenty times. In 
March, 1877, she concluded to take another trip to the West. This 
time she remained in St. Louis four months, then visited Topeka. 
While at Topeka, the cry was still " Westward, Ho !" so she, in com- 
pany with her friends, went on a trip to Colorado, and spent a Sun- 
day in Pueblo. From the high table lands surrounding Pueblo they 
could see Pike's Peak and the snow upon it, a distance of seventy- 
five miles ; they could see the Spanish Peaks, one hundred and fifty 
miles olT, and they could even see much further than that when the 
atmosphere was not in a hazy condition — they could see the moon. 
She spent eight months in Topeka, and meanwhile had the pleasure 
of frequently seeing and visiting our friend and class-mate, Mrs. 
Howell Jones, formerly E. Hattie Hayes. In March, 1878, she left 



22 



CLASS OF iS6S. 



Topeka for the East. On her way she stopped in St. Louis about 
six weeks, then at Clearfield two weeks, and then at Philadelphia, 
where she has been enjoying the hospitalities of our classmate, Miss 
Maggie S. Davis. 

I liold it. true, whate'er befall ; 

I feel it when I sorrow most, — 
'Tis better to have loved and lost. 

Than never to have loved at all. 
Never trouijle trouble till trouble troubles you. 



Mrs. NANCY 



JOHNSTON DOUGLAS. 
county, Illinois. 



of Shirely, McLean 



During the first year after graduation, taught as assistant principal 
for eight months in a graded school at Sewickley, Allegheny county. 
Pa. She closed her school on the last day of May, 1869, and on 
the 9th day of June, following, Simeon, the man of God, performed 
the ceremony which made her the wife of J. L. Douglas, a former 
student of this institution. At the time of their marriage her hus- 
band was teaching at Shirley, Illinois, and as he had the opportunity 
of becoming telegraph operator and general superintendent at the 
railroad station in that town, Mrs. Douglas took charge of his school, 
and finished the unexpired term, enabling him to accept the posi- 
tion. The term following she taught the same school. She learned 
telegraphing, and at one time was in charge of her husband's office 
as night operator. Her husband is postmaster, and, as his duties 
at the station require most of his time, Mrs. Douglas attends to the 
mails, often making them up and distributing them. She also ren- 
ders him assistance by having ahnost entire charge of his books. 
Her time is fully occupied, and she has visited her Pennsylvania 
home only three times since she left it on her wedding day, more 
than nine years ago. She has four little children, Laura, who walked 
and talked when five months old, Clara, Mary, and Isaac, just taking 
his first steps, whom she was unwilling to leave, and the oppressively 
hot weather made it inadvisable to bring them a great distance, or 
she would probably have joined us in our .re-union. In the begin- 
ning of last May they had a sad loss; their house, with the greater 
part of its contents, being destroyed by fire. Among the many val- 
uable things that fell a prey to the conflagration were furniture and 
all kinds of clothing, from her husband's hat to her baby's shoe, but 



SECOND DISTRICT NORMAL SCHOOL'. 



23 



harder to replace than these were about two hundred highly prized 
volumes of their library, from the unabridged dictionary down to a 
Normal school catalogue. 

BELL JOHNSTON, of Allegheny City. Pa. 

Since leaving the Normal has taught three and half years in Alle- 
gheny city, at a salary of §500 per year. The remainder of the 
time she resided at home with her father, brother, and sisters. She 
paid her sister in the West a visit since she resides in Shirley, spend- 
ing one winter there and also visited the Centennial Exhibition two 
years ago. She has visited her Alma Mater but once since graduating, 
then only during a vacation. 

Still, through our paltrj'Stir and strife, 

Glows down the wislied ideal. 
And longing molds in clay wliat life 

Carves in the marble real ; 
To let the new life in, we know, 

Desire must ope the portal ; 
Perhaps the longing to be so 

Helps make the .soul iiuniortal. 



ANNIE LINCOLN FIELD, of Darby. Pa. 

Started her professional career by teaching a school in Lancaster- 
ville, alias Wrangletown, in Montgomery county, where she con- 
tinued for almost two years in spite of a three-mile walk to the rail- 
road, to the district teachers' institute, and other similar disadvan- 
tages and discouragements. She next obtained a school in Delaware 
county, and, when her vacation arrived, she. liy the glowing descrip- 
tion of an acquaintance, was induced to spend several months in hot, 
dusty Philadelphia, learning tooperate the telegraph. This experience 
was not very satisfactory, and v,-hen October arrived, she again found 
her way back to the school-room, a wiser and more contented woman. 
She applied for and was appointed to the Jarrettown school, in 
Montgomery county, situated in a district adjoining the one in whiih 
she first engaged in the profession. As the term advanced, the 
school became too large for one teacher to manage advantageously, 
so an assistant was appointed for her, which assistant was a gentle- 
man, and took charge of the primary department. She remained 
in this situation only two years, when she left it with the determi- 



y 



24 



CLASS OF 1868. 



nation to accept an altogether new role. On a lovely October morn, 
just before the melancholy .days had come, when all nature was 
decked in golden, variegated, kaleidoscopic hues, she bid adieu to 
single blessedness, and departed for 

"Fresher Fields and pa-stures new," 

adding another name to her own by means of matrimonial bonds. 
She is now Mrs. Anna L. Field, lives in her native county of Dela- 
ware, near Darby, is the happy mother of two sons, whom some day 
she desires to see graduates of the Millersville Normal School. 

Cliildren are what the mothers are. 
No fonde.st fathei-'.s care 
Can lashion so the infant heart 
As tliose creative beams that dart, 
With all their hojies and fears, upon 
The cradle of a sleeping son. 



RACHIE P. FREY. of Sioux City, Iowa, 

Taught in Lancaster county, not far from Millersville, immediately 
after her graduation. How long she continued to teach in Penn- 
sylvania the historian was unable to ascertain, either directly or in- 
directly, but three years afterwards she removed to the eastern part 
of Iowa, having previously married a Mr. Frey. After living in east- 
ern Iowa near four years, they removed to the north-western part of 
that State, where they have since resided. Mrs. Frey has been en- 
gaged at teaching during the greater part of the last four years, and 
says she enjoys it very much. For two years past she has been 
teaching in the primary schools of Sioux City, at a salary of fifty 
dollars per month. She has two little girls, one eight years old, and 
the other over five. On learning of the intended reunion of the 
class, she was so desirous of joining us that she could scarcely forego 
the pleasure of coming, but distance and unfavorable circumstances 
compelled her to give up the idea, and in her answer to that effect, 
she says: " You cannot know how I long to come, and I find my- 
self constantly picturing the scene, as I presume it shall be at the 
Normal on that occasion." 



SECOND DISTRICT NORMAL SCHOOL. 25 



SALLIEJ. RICHARDS, of Talladega, Alabama, 

On leaving the Normal in 1868, obtained a situation in a graded 
school at Barren Hill, Montgomery county, Pa. Here she taught 
a large school, mostly of small scholars, with good success for two 
years. She might have had the situation a longer time had she so 
desired, but she wished to see something of the West. In the sum- 
mer of 1870 she went to Washington county, Indiana, where she 
remained nearly a year, four months of which time she taught an 
ungraded school. Her scholars here were generally large, and her 
success good. The following summer she left Indiana for Illinois, 
and succeeded in getting a school at Holder, nine miles from the 
city of Bloomington, which situation she retained for two years. 
She then left the profession for several years for a new sphere of 
duty, which, upon a fair trial, proved unsatisfactory, and she re- 
turned to the school-room again, teaching near Bloomington, near 
which city she had her home from the time she went there in 187 1. 
In the summer of 1877, she went to Iowa, where she remained tintil 
the I St of the following December, then she went to Oxford, Ala- 
bama, for the purpose of taking a course at Oxford College. On 
the 2ist of last June, she graduated from Oxford College with honors, 
in a class of ten, the course embracing the higher studies, languages, 
etc. When last heard from, she was not engaged at any thing spe- 
cially, but was looking around for a situation in a high school, 
normal school, or some institution of that grade and character. Her 
career, professionally, has been generally successful, and her present 
is very promising of a bright and happy future, yet during a part 
of the time since our parting here, ten years ago, she was the victim 
of a most agonizing sorrow. It is but meet for us, her more fortu- 
nate class-mates, to extend to her Christian sympathy, and prayerfully 
bid her : 

Oh, be of comfort ! 

Make patience a noble fortitude. 

And think not how unkindly we are us'd : 

Man, lilve a cassia, is prov'd best being bruis'd. 

Mrs. MARY SERRILL VERLENDEN, of Darby, Pa. 

Began teaching in a little one-story school-house in Upper Darby, 
Delaware county. Pa., in the fall of 1868. The school was un- 
graded, but quite pleasant, and she retained the situation a year and 



26 



CLASS OF iS6S. 



six months. Immediately after this, she finished an unexpired term 
of two months in Concord, in the same county. During two months 
of the fall of 1870, she taught a preparatory class in Swathmore 
College, after which she spent the remainder of that year at her 
home. In 1872, she began teaching in Darby, and continued in 
the same place for two years and three months, leaving only because 
the superintendent of Delaware county insisted upon an examina- 
tion before he would sign her application for a master diploma. 
Having resigned for these reasons, she remained without any situa- 
tion until the following fall, when she was appointed teacher of the 
first grammar school in Mount Holly, New Jersey, where she re- 
mained two years. 

On the 14th of September, 1876, she was married to W. Lane 
Verlenden, a cotton and woolen manufacturer, of Darby, where she 
now has her home. In the ten years that have elapsed since we, in 
a body, passed over the threshold of our alma mater out into the 
frowning world, she has revisited the Normal three times, and always 
with very great pleasure. She informs us, with all the pride of a 
devoted mother, that she possess the lovliest and healthiest boy baby 
that the class can produce, and care for him is all that causes her to 
forego the great pleasure of attending our reunion. 



I know he's CDining by this sign, 

That bab}''s almost wild: 
See how he laughs and crows and starts — 

Heaven bless the merry child ! 



Mrs. MAGGIE STEACY DUNGAN. of Halifax. Dauphin 
County, Pa. 

Formerly of Sterling, Illinois, entered the Millersville State Normal 
School in the spring of 1866. In the spring of 1867, at the request 
of the principal. Professor E. Brooks, she became pupil assistant, 
which position she held until graduating in the summer of 1868. 
During the vacation following her graduation, she was elected by 
the school board of Columbia, Pa., to a position in the high school 
of that town, but, before word had reached her officially of the 
action of the board, she had been elected as regular member of the 
State Normal Faculty. After carefully considering the advantages 
of each position, she choose to continue at the Normal. As assist- 
ant in the geographical department, she entered upon her new duties 



SECOND DISTRICT NORMAL SCHOOL. 27 

in the fall of 1868. In the spring of 1869, she was promoted to 
the head of the geographical department, which position she held 
until her marriage in March, I875. As a stranger, thirteen hundred 
miles from home, and unknown by any" one at the Normal, she 
timidly entered its walls, with a mind uncultivated, yet burning with 
a zealous ambition to secure intellectual culture and advancement. 
As a member of the D division, she commenced her normal career, 
little dreaming that nine years would elapse ere she would leave its 
friendly shade. With a desire to secure the. intellectual and moral 
advancement of her pupils, she labored earnestly and willingly. 

In March of 1875, '""^r professional career was ended by her mar- 
riage to Reverend J. Dungan, a member of the Philadelphia Con- 
ference of the Methodist Episcopal Church. At the time of their 
marriage, Mr. Dungan was stationed at Millersville, but he was soon 
afterwards removed to Mt. Joy, where they lived two years, and 
thence to Halifax, Dauphin county, where they have since resided. 
They have two children, twins, a boy and a girl. Her new field of 
labor lies before her with duties even more responsible than those of 
the old. As a wife and a mother, her duties as a teacher, in a diviner 
sense, ever press upon her with a weight such as constantly directs 
her mind for guidance and wisdom to the Great Teacher. 

More liunian, more divine than we, 

111 truth, luilf huiiiaii, half divine, 
Is woman, wlieii good stars agree 

To temper with their beams benign 
The hour of her nativity. 



GEORGE W. OBERHOLTZER, Sioux City, Iowa. 

Graduated in the elementary course of the Pennsylvania State Nor- 
mal School, at Millersville, in 1866. In September, of the same 
year, he accepted a position as principal of the public schools at Dun- 
cannon, Pa. In 1868, he graduated in the scientific course of the 
Millersville Normal School, then taught at Sugartown, Pa. ; a few 
months after which, he accepted the position of teacher of mathe- 
matics and English in Union Hall Academy, at Jamaica, Long Is- 
land, N. Y. Our informant does not say whether he liked teaching, 
nor does he speak of his success, but whatever either or both may 
have been, he concluded to study for the profession of civil engi- 
neer, and graduated at the Pennsylvania Polytechnic College, 



28 CLASS OF iSbS. 



Philadelphia, in the class of 1871, having passed a private examina- 
tion, and entered in the senior year. In August, 1871, he accepted 
a position as assistant engineer on the Burlington and Missouri 
River railroad, in Nebraska, and dwelt in a tent amidst the 

" Eternal sea of grass and sky," 

on the prairies of central Nebraska, until the completion of the 
road, in 1872. We next hear of him in Sioux City, Iowa, where 
in May, 1872, he opens an office for a general surveying and engi- 
neering practice. The Sioux are an observing tribe, and soon 
appreciate the worth of a captive, so in March, 1873, they elect 
Friend Oberholtzer their city engineer. 

Naturally confirming their convictions, they reelect him in 1874, 
1875, 1876, 1877, and 1878. It is reported, on good authority, 
that in the State of Oregon the cows become so old, that it is ne- 
cessary to fasten broomsticks on to the ends of their horns for the 
wrinkles to grow out on. Were we to report this history forty years 
hence, we would be in very much the same predicament in recording 
his reiilections, for he, unlike President Hayes, is not committed to 
a single term. In October, 1877, he was also elected county sur- 
veyor of Woodbury county, Iowa, and as our fellow-classmate is yet 
a young man of an aspiring nature, we may expect to hear of still 
further promotion as the vigorous young Northwest looms into pro- 
minence. 

On the i8th of December, 1877, he made Miss Rosa M. Allen, a 
Sioux City teacher, from the Keystone State, Mrs. George W. Ober- 
holtzer, and after a few weeks reunion amongst the friends and 
relations of both the high contracting parties in Pennsylvania, en- 
tered upon their home-life in February, 1878, in a house he had 
built the previous summer. He regards his life in the last decade 
not an eventful one, only a succession of quiet, persistent, and in a 
measure, successful work, and he is evidently happy as he claims, as 
his own, the poet's sentiment: 

" Homo 's not merely four square walls, 
Though with pictures hung and guilded. 
Home is where affection csUls, 
And the heart its slirine has l)uilded. 

"Home! go ask tlie faithful dove, 
.Sailing in the arch above us. 
Home is where tlicre's one to love, 
Home is where there's one to love to us." 



SECOND DISTRICT NORMAL SCHOOL. 29 

Distance, and the surveying engagements of the summer, prevented 
him from joining us in our class reunion, but he wishes to have it 
known, that should any of us ever wander as far into the interior as 
Sioux City, we will always find the latch-string out at the house of 
our old classmate. 

Dr. H. C. BARTLESON. of Philadelphia, 

Directly upon leaving the Normal in 1868, began the study of 
medicine, and in the spring of 1870, graduated from the Jefferson 
Medical College of Philadelphia. He hung out his shingle in the 
western suburbs of that city, and up to this time has continued in 
the same vicinity relieving pain, healing the sick, and doing good 
in his professional line generally. In the latter part of 1873, he 
married Miss Clara V. Thompson, of Philadelphia, since which time 
his family has increased by the addition of two boys, Bartleson by 
name, aged respectively four and two years. 

Although we admit that the patient can oftener do without the 
doctor, than the doctor without the patient, still 

"A wise physician, skilled our woiiuds to lieal, 
Is more than arniies to tlie public weal." 

J. N. BARR, M. E.. of Altoom. Pa. 

The winter following our graduation, taught school in Lampeter 
township, Lancaster county. At the close of the term he returned 
to the Normal, and in the summer of 1869, graduated in the scien- 
tific course. Then he obtained a situation at the Lehigh University, 
where he spent two years as assistant to the professor in mathematics. 
While thus engaged he employed his leisure, of which he had an 
abundance, in studying the branches pertaining to mechanical engi- 
neering, and in June, 1871, he received his diploma as Mechanical 
Engineer. The commencement exercises at the Lehigh LTniversity 
took place on Thursday, and the following Monday he went into 
the shops of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, at West Philadel- 
phia, " under instructions." This situation he obtained through the 
assistance of Mr. Joseph Baker, formerly an officer of the company. 
Here he spent eighteen months. His blue overalls, at first neat and 
new, grew gray with service, and the greasy black spots that settled 
upon them no amount of washing would remove. The novelty of 



30 



CLASS OF iS68. 



his duties, cliipping and filing, starting and stopping machines, and 
reducing rough pieces of iron to the shape prescribed by drawings 
made elsewhere, was at first interesting, but in the course of a few 
months the ten hours thus daily spent began to grow exceedingly 
uniform and correspondingly irksome. In reality the amount of 
knowledge necessary to make a workman in a machine shop is com- 
paratively small and soon acquired, manual dexterity being the main 
thing. After about eighteen months of this kind of service, he was 
called into the shop of the master mechanic, and instructed to report 
to Mr. Cassatt. the then general manager of the company. Here 
he received orders to report to Mr. Gardner, then superintendent of 
motive power, at Altoona, on January i, 1873, and given charge of 
a position in the office of the mechanical engineer of the company. 
After spending about three months in this office, the department of 
building and general machinery was placed in his charge, which po- 
sition he retained until March, 1874, when he was placed in charge 
of the wheel foundry of the company as foreman. About one year 
afterwards the wheels and axles on the road were also put into his 
charge, together with the records pertaining to the same. The ex- 
penditures of the wheel foundry amount to about two thousand dollars 
per day, or about six hundred thousand dollars per year, which fact, 
together with that of the immense amount of capital invested in 
wheels and axles in the service of the road, show clearly that his sit- 
uation is one of great responsibility and importance. Friend Barr's 
responsible duties involve the prudent expenditure of the money ne- 
cessary to operate the wheel foundry, and the judicious management 
of the wheels and axles in service, so as to secure the best returns for 
the capital invested. His career, since our separation at the Normal, 
ten years ago, has been one continuous scene of steady work, and his 
gradual promotion, from one important post to another, shows 
equally continuous and steady progress and success. Although 
wheels and axles have occupied his head for years past, to the ex- 
clusion of almost everything else, they did not run away with his 
heart. That was securely moored to a fair object at the Millersville 
Normal School, and neither wheels, axles, pullies, levers, wind, 
weather, or waves ever moved it, as is proven by the fact that early 
in 187s he took to himself as wife Miss Ella Brooks of the class of 
1812. Their home has since been in Altoona, Pa., and is rendered 
all the more dear and homelike for having in it a child they call 
" our son, John." 



SECOND DISTRICT NORMAL SCHOOL, 31 



Rev. W. W. COOK, of Manayunk, Pa. 

After graduating at the Normal, was sent to Smyrna, Del., to see 
trustees, who wished to employ a teacher. Said trustees "wanted 
to see the build of a man before they employed him, as their last 
teacher had been carried out by the boys." They seemed satisfied 
with Cook's proportions, and were about clinching the bargain when 
he learned that they e,\pected him to teach twelve months for a 
year's salary, and that any vacation taken would be deducted from 
the salary. He immediately resigned. They were, however, gen- 
erous enough to pay the e.xpenses of his trip, and as an equivalent 
for this generosity, he informed them that " ten months make one 
year" in the Normal teachers' calendar, and also that there were 
plenty of young ladies in the class of 1868, the fire of whose eyes 
would do more than the avoirdupois of any man's inches to control 
their boys. 

In September, 1868, he entered the grammar school of Rutger's 
College, to study Latin and Greek preparatory to a college course. 
The following January he became assistant teacher in the same 
school, continuing his studies, which double-duty impaired his 
health by spring ; he therefore went to Clearfield county in May, 
and took charge of a class of teachers, who wanted to acquire some 
Normal freshness. He taught, rambled among the mountains, re- 
cruited health, studied Greek, and in September entered Rutger's 
College. He informs us that he had the usual college experiences, 
from which we might infer he hazed, was hazed, rebelled, was ex- 
pelled, and the various other crooked e.Nperiences so common to 
colleges now-a-days, but our knowledge of his nature will not justify 
such an inference, for he was always a good Cook. As editor of a 
college paper, he had a term of journalizing, and his extra hours he 
employed in teaching Japanese youth. These he found apt and in- 
teresting, being eager students of the Bible, as well as of language, 
and he hopes a normal influence was left upon their intellectual 
development, as well as upon their religious views. 

In 1870 honors commenced. He was elected anniversary orator 
of the Normal society, was too busy to accept, bat appreciated the 
compliment all the same. Of college prizes, he gained two for 
essays, one for a speech, and one for an examination in the natural 
sciences. They now compose the contents of the most valued shelf 
of his library. 



32 



CLASS OF iS68. 



He graduated from college in 1873, and in September, of the 
same year, entered Union Tiieological Seminary, with a view of 
preparing for the Gospel ministry. Earlier in life he had enter- 
tained such intentions, but was diverted for a time to teaching, as 
the nearest kin to the profession for which his heart yearned. During 
the vacations of his seminary course, he engaged in elementary 
preaching in Maine and northern New York, good places in which 
to work and recruit, on account of the bracing mountain air. This 
he claims an excellent educating process. 

In September, 1875, he married Miss Sue D. Richardson, a 
member of the class of 1864. His wife accompanied him to New 
York for his last year in the seminary, and he now avers that from 
actual experience, he knows a student's life to be much more enjoya- 
ble when one's chum is a partner for life, and that New York affords 
grand opportunities for a married couple to study together the 
varied range of books and humanity. 

He graduated from the seminary May 8, 1876; was ordained 
and installed pastor of the Fourth Reformed Church, Philadelphia, 
at Manayunk, May 9, and helped to open the Centennial on May 
10 — helped to swell the crowd, and the profits. He commenced 
the new century as one of the preachers who shall endeavor to leaven 
the thought of the coming ages. 

On the 25th of May, 187b, he married his first couple, who promise 
to turn out well, and he wishes it announced that he is prepared to 
help forward in the same way, to happiness, any members of the 
class of 1868, who may still be pining in loneliness. Let the only 
bachelor, and all the spinsters of the class, not lose the opportunity 
this reunion affords. 

Since entering the ministry, he has followed nineteen to the 
grave, baptized forty-five, received sixty-three into the fellowship of 
the Church, and married sixteen couple. In September, 1876, a 
little girl, a cooky, came to their home, and now contributes her 
share of innocent prattle to brighten and cheer their way. A retro- 
spect of his experience, gives him a very high appreciation of Normal 
training. Having mingled with men from most colleges, he has 
become fairly convinced that no college gives as good a foundation 
for correct and vigorous English as our Normal. He is thankful 
for having had access to both, but were he to choose between them, 
he would select the Normal. He reminds his classmates that the 
century is moving forward, and hopes that they may have a share 



SECOND DISTRICT NORMAL SCHOOL. 33 

in advancing all in it of good, and that at the next Centennial, we 
may have a grand reunion in Bi-Centennial Educational Hall, in 
Philadelphia. One decade has already sped, and only a brief ninety 
years more remain. How practicable ! He, however, adds: " Goa 
disposes. Let us place our lives at His disposal, and so be ready for 
a glad reunion beyond earth's changes, there to perfect our educa- 
tion, in the advantages of the full light that shines from the 'Throne 
of God.'" 

Tlie heiglits by great men reached and kept, 

Were not attained by sudden flight; 
But they, while their companions slept, 

Were toiling upwards in the night. 



WATSON CORNELL, of Philadelphia, 

From December i, iS6g, until the following May, taught a district 
school in Bucks county. Pa., when an engagement was made for him 
to take charge of a private school of young ladies and gentlemen, 
in Luthersburg, Clearfield county. In September of that year, he 
returned to Bucks county, and took charge of the Andalusia public 
school, which position he retained until April, 1870, when the prin- 
cipalship of a consolidated school in the Twenty-sixth ward of 
Philadelphia, was tendered him, which he accepted. In the spring 
of 1S71, the congregation of the North Tenth Street Presbyterian 
Church, appreciating his musical qualifications, selected him for their 
chorister. This position he still retains. 

In 18715, the Philadelphia Board of Education, in addition to his 
regular duties as teacher, appointed him principal of the night school 
for men and boys in the thirtieth section, in 1876 in the twenty- 
sixth section, and in 1877 "'' the first section. These night schools 
are very large, registering from four hundred to six hundred pupils, 
which makes the principal actually a superintendent. Friend Cor- 
nell was one of the singers selected for the chorus at the opening of 
the Centennial Exhibition, in 1876, and is regarded as one of Phila- 
delphia's good vocalists. His career has been anything but an idle 
one. 

He has been advancing gradually, with each step he took, and 
the position he has- reached in his profession is one with which he 
expresses himself well pleased, causing us to infer that it is not only 
honorable but profitable as well. His professional duties, however 



34 



CLASS OF rS6S. 



arduous, did not occupy his time and attention exclusively, for it 
seems he found time to woo and wed. He was married on the i8th 
May, 1874, to the daughter of Honorable James Hurtt, who for 
several years was a representative at Harrisburg. He has two sons 
who take after their father, as they are both children of promise. 

Ask me no more, wliither does haste 
The nightingale, when May is past. 
For in your sweet, dividing tliroat 
Slie winters and Iceeps warm lier note. 

How music cliarms ! 

How metre warms! 

Parent of actions good and brave ! 

How vice it tames, 

And worth inflames, 

And holds proud empire o'er the grave ! 



GEORGE H. DESCH. City Supemtendenf of Mentown, Pa. 

Attended the Pennsylvania State Teachers' Association, which con- 
vened at Allentown in the August following our graduation. While 
there, he was informed of a vacancy in the male grammar school, 
then the only school of the kind in the place. He immediately 
made application, returned to his home, and in a week or so after- 
wards was notified of his appointment to the position he sought. 
On the ist of September he took charge of it, and continued in 
the same school for three successive terms ; then the board of con- 
trollers saw fit to promote him to the position of teacher of the 
male high school, a more laborious, but at the same time a more 
lucrative charge. This situation he was master of for seven con- 
secutive years, or to the end of the last school year, since the close 
of which he was unanimously elected Superintendent of the Public 
Schools of Allentown. 

He has not grown rich in worldly goods in the e.xercise of his 
profession, for few who enter the teachers' ranks with eyes open can 
hope to become so, but he modestly claims the sweet pleasure of 
having won the youth growing up under his care, to be his truest 
friends and warmest supporters; the positive assurance that boys, 
because of your instruction, grow up into gond, noble men, is, 
after all, the best remuneration of a devoted teacher. 

The " ups and downs" of this life are many, and our esteemed 



SECOND DISTRICT NORMAL SCHOOL. 35 

classmate was not permitted to pursue the even tenor of his way the 
whole past decade through without some unusual disturbance to his 
social life. On the i8th July, 1872, he received a Shock, but this 
shock came not in the shape of a misfortune, but in the shape of a 
bride ; he bid a fond farewell to single blessedness, and married 
Miss Emma A. Shock, one of Schuylkill county's fair daughters. 
This he acknowledges to be one of the best of his many good works, 
and so entirely satisfactory to him has been the change, that he ad- 
vises the only bachelor and all the spinsters of the class to go imme- 
diately and do likewise, as the shock can easily be survived. Should 
curiosity prompt any of you to ask of how many his family consists, 
he will promptly answer: "We are three," meaning himself, his 
wife, and a very active and charming little daughter, two years old, 
the sunshine of the family. The shock has left its effects upon his 
mind, for all the foregoing terms of endearment are his own, giving 
as an excuse his being the father. 

In the spring of 1873, he withdrew his patronage from the Allen- 
town boarding-houses, and commenced housekeeping in his own 
home. No. 514 Turner street, Allentown, where we shall leave him 
to -'while the happy hours away." 

For humanity sweeps onward ; where to-day tlie martyr stands. 
On tlie morrow crouches Judas, witli the silver in his hands; 
Fariu the front tlie cross stands ready, and the craclvliug fagots liurn. 
While tlie hooting mob of yesterda\- in silent awe return 
To glean up the scattered aslies into history's golden urn. 



WARREN C. EVANS, Attorney- at- Law. Nomstom. Pa. 

In the winter of i868-6g, taught an ungraded public school for six 
months, in Lancaster county. He contracted a severe cold during 
the winter, and was indisposed much of the succeeding summer. 
The following winter he taught a similar school near Pottstown, 
Montgomery county. In the spring of 1870, ht entered a law 
office in Norristown, and on May 18, 1871, was admitted to the 
Montgomery county bar. About one month afterwards he opened 
an office all by himself, and has been paddling his own canoe in the 
same cell ever since, meeting with fair success in his profession. On 
December 21, 1876, he was married to Miss Emma Beerer, of Nor- 
ristown. They immediately commenced housekeeping in Pottstown, 
where they still reside. A darling daughter has blessed the union. 



36 CLASS OF iS6S. 



In a letter dated July 3, 1878, he says: "Your letter furnished 
food for thought, retrospective. It carried rae back to a scene big 
with hope and fate set to view in the old library room at the Nor- 
mal ten years ago to-day. There sat the class of '68, anxious, 
heated, vexed, closing a long and trying ordeal of final examina- 
tion. From the Monday morning of that week imtil late on the 
eve of that memorable 4th of July, we held the fort, and always came 
up smiling, reserving our denunciations until that wonderful board 
of State examiners vamosed the ranche. It is much more pleas- 
ant to deal with it now than it was then. Many incidents I recall, 
and I suppose the minds of more of that class are running in that 
same channel to you." 

Yet, I doubt not, through the age.s 

One ini-reusing purpose runs. 
And the thoughts of men are widened 

Witli tlie proce.ss of its suns. 



Professor k.D. EISENHOWER, of Norrisfown. Pa. 

After graudating in July, 186S, accepted a position as principal of 
the public schools at Shippensburg, Pa. At his request, in March, 
1869, the board of directors released him from his engagement with 
them, and he returned to the Normal as assistant in mathematics 
and " theory of teaching." This position he occupied until July, 
1872, pursuing the studies of the scientific course meanwhile, and 
graduating in that course July, 1871. 

It was his intention on leaving the Normal to cjuit teaching, and 
engage in the ministry. For the purpose of preparing himself, he 
went to Crozer Theological Seminary, at Chester, Pa. Remaining 
there part of one year, he left on account of his health, and con- 
cluded to resume the work of teaching. In September, 1873, ^e 
entered upon his duties as principal of the Norristown high school, 
where he has labored during the past five years. In July, 1874, he 
presided over the alumni exercises, and m May, 1878, over the an- 
niversary exercises of the Page Literary Society. 

In December 29, 1874, he was married to Miss Etta B. Livezey, 
of the class of 1871. They are now "keeping house," and are 
always pleased to have any of their classmates, or other Normal 
friends, to call and see them. 



SECOND DISTRICT NORMAL SCHOOL. 37 



I shot an arrow in the air, 
It fell to earth, 1 knew not where, 
For so swift it flew, tlie sight 
Could not follow in its fliglit. 

I breathed a song into the air, 
It fell to earth, I knew not where. 
For who has sight so swift and strong. 
That it can follow the flight of song. 

Long, long afterwards, still unbroke, 
I found the arrow in an oak. 
And the song, from beginning to end, 
I found in the heart of a friend. 



Rev. I. M. GABLE, of Guthriesville, Chester county, Pa. 

On leaving the Normal, was elected principal of the Franklin School 
of East Donegal, Lancaster county, with Miss Sallie Boyle as his as- 
sistant. This position he continued to hold until in the spring of 
1870. During the first year here the patrons, in addition to his sal- 
ary, paid his board, and in order to secure his services for a second 
year, paid not only his board but that of his wife also. The direct- 
ors of the township urged him to become a candidate for the county 
superintendency, and nominated him for that office in convention 
in May, 1872, which facts attest his success and the value of his ser- 
vice;; more strongly than the diction of the historian's pen. In the 
spring of 1870 he was appointed principal of the Mt. Joy Soldiers' Or- 
phan School, which, under him and his assistants, attained a rank 
second to none of that class of schools in the State. In September, 
1862, he resigned his position here preparatory to entering the min- 
istry of the M. E. Church the following spring. Meanwhile he took 
a trip across the Alleghenies for the purpose of seeing the coijntry, 
and delivering a lecture on ''Latent Power," in Springfield and 
Canton, Ohio. He joined the M. E. Church at Mt. Joy, under 
Rev. S. A. Heilner, as pastor, in 1871. became a member of the 
Philadelphia Conference of that Church at Columbia, in 1873, ^"^ 
was appointed to the Hummelstown, Dauphin county, charge, which 
he served three years. In 1876, he was appointed to Atglen, Chester 
county, where he reiliained two years, and was removed against the 
strong remonstrances of his members, but the officers of the confer- 
ence jdelded to the request of another charge, and appointed him to 
Guthriesville, Chester county, which is his present field of labor. 



38 CLASS OF iS68. 



Atglen he left reluctlantly. but finds Gutliriesville a very pleasant 
appointment, as it is located in one of the most beautiful and wealthy 
parts of Chester county. The community is intelligent, there being 
probably no less than twenty-five or thirty ex-students of Millersville, 
several of whom are graduates, members of his congregation. Of 
his success since in the ministry, we have no higher encomiums, nor 
can we have, than mere naked facts. Hear ye them. At Hummels- 
town, the membership of the Church more than doubled during the 
three years of his administration. At Atglen he found a member- 
ship of less than one hundred, and in two years left it at two hun- 
dred and eight. He seems to have the faculty of getting all the 
good out of life there is in it. He graduated at the age of twenty- 
three, was married at twenty-four, and has already had and served 
with success three charges. On the 25th of May, 1869, he married 
Miss Mary C. Blessing, of Hellam, York county, being the pioneer 
benedict of the class, and he now boasts of two children, a girl and 
a boy ; the girl will soon be ready to walk the halls and enter the 
recitation rooms of her father's A/ma Mater. 

For tlie .structure that we raise 

Tune is with materials filled, 
Our to-days and 3-esterdays 

Are tlie blocks with which we build. 



Build to-day then, strong and sure. 
With a firm and ample base. 

And ascending and secure 
Shall to-morrow find its place. 



B. F. HUDSON, Attorney and Counselor at Law, Atchison, 

Kansas. 

After graduating at Millersville, entered the law department of the 
Michigan University, at Ann Harbor, in October, 1868. Here he 
remained two years, graduating in 1870, and receiving his diploma 
as L.L. B. Without being able to give any very good reason for his 
actions, except a desire to yield obedience to the great journalist's 
injunction of " Go West, young man, go West," he at once sought 
a western home, like most young men then. He reached Missouri, 
but, as if by instinct, passed directly through that State, crossed the 
Big Muddy, and after visiting the principal towns in Kansas, con- 
cluded to locate in Atchison, the "railroad center" of the State, 



SECOND DISTRICT NORMAL SCHOOL. 



39 



a thriving young city of about thirteen thousand inhabitants, where 
he commenced the practice of the law in the fall of 1870, and where 
he has remained ever since. On the iSth October, 1871, he was 
married to Miss Kittie Mitchell, of Ann Harbor, Michigan. They 
have had two children, a boy and a girl. When only two years 
and three months old, death rudely robbed them of the elder, their 
little cherub boy, of whom they were so proud. 

Their little girl is now between three and four years old, and 
renders their home happy and cheerful, children being the sunshine 
of home. He has been somewhat engaged in politics, having been 
four times elected in succession, and is about to close his last official 
term as attorney for the -city of Atchison. He, however, has no 
high encomiums to pass upon politics or politicians as a rule, and 
thinks them a good thing for a young man just commencing life to 
let alone. He is pleased with his profession, and is grateful for the 
measure of success that has attended his efforts in its practice. Of 
his adopted State he is likewise proud — proud to be called a Kansan 
— but at the same time strongly loving and cherishing a deep and 
abiding faith in the old Keystone. Grasshoppers, he says, are not 
feared now as formerly. The State claims eight hundred thousand 
inhabitants now, and if immigration is not interrupted, by 1880 
will fully reach one million. 

Jlan for the field, and woman for the hearth, 
Man for the sword, and for the needle she, 
Man for the head, and woman for the heart, 
Man to command, and woman to obey. 
All else confusion. 



Professor E. 0. LYTE, of Millersville, Pa. 

Has taught at the Normal School since graduating in 1868, his first 
position being teacher of rhetoric, book-keeping, and grammar. 
Since 1873, he has been professor of vocal music, grammar and book- 
keeping, and is so announced in the catalogue of the school. In 
the spring of 1872, he arrived at the very sensible conclusion that 
he had stood in his own light long enough, so he made amends for 
much of his past folly by associating a luminary, and since then they 
have been traveling along through space a very happy pair of Lytes. 
We will be a little more explicit : He was married in the spring of 
1872, to Miss Mary Mcjunkin, of the c'ass of 1871. 



40 



CLASS OF 1868. 



He was graduated in 1S76, in the scientific course of the Millers- 
ville Normal School, and in June of the present year, received the 
honorary degree of A. M. from Franklin and Marshall College. 
He was one of the editorial staff of The Normal Monthly, during 
the first part of its brief life. About 1871 and 187:, he wrote a 
little work on book-keeping, which ran through two editions, and 
is now out of print. He is also author of three music books, two 
of which are having good sales, and the third is now in press. He 
has also engaged some at institute work, written for the newspapers, 
and devised oral and written methods of parsing and analysis, that 
are deserving of more than mere casual mention. "Three removes 
are as bad as a fire," is an experience friend Lyte has not tasted, as 
he has been firmly rooted to the same spot from the first, unlike most 
of his classmates. 

As unto the bow the cord is. 

So unti) the man is woman. 

Tliongli she bends hiin, she obeys him, 

Thougli slie draws liim, yet slie follows, 

Useless eacli witliout the other. 



Professor GEORGE MARSDEN, of Clearfield County. Pa. 

Upon leaving Millersville in 1868, was appointed teacher of the 
female department of the Tyrone high school. He declined the 
offer, as he favored the co-education of the sexes, and secured the 
school at Tyrone Forge for a term of six months, at .sixty dollars 
per month. From the close of this term, he worked on the farm 
until the following August, when Mr. L. Cort, principal of the 
Juniata Collegiate Institute, at Martinsburg, Blair county, engaged 
him as first assistant for the year, but which er.gagement terminated 
at the end of six months, owing to the principal's lack of success 
in making it pay pecuniarily. In March, 1S70, he filled a one month 
vacancy in one of the Altoona schools, after which he opened a 
county normal school in Frankstown, two miles from Hollidaysburg, 
with an attendance of about forty, consisting of teachers and others, 
at the rate of two dollars ekch a month. Encouraged with this suc- 
cess, he opened a second term for six months the following Septem- 
ber. So satisfactory were the results of this term, that he opened a 
third for three months with excellent attendance, running up the 
profits to $80 and Si 25 per month. Against the wishes of the peo- 



SECOND DISTRICT NORMAL SCHOOL. 41 



pie, he declined continuing here, owing to the secluded nature of a 
private school, as only the more wealthy class could attend it; so in 
the tall of 1870, he was employed as principal of the graded schools 
of Ebensburg, Cambria county, where he taught the high school, 
and exercised authority over the other grades, visiting them every 
Wednesday. Here he received for his services seventy-five dollars per 
month, term six months. After the close of the regular term, he 
conducted a normal school for three months more, with fair attend- 
ance. Not wholly satisfied here, he concluded to try his fortunes 
further east, and for three weeks taught in the vicinity of Philadel- 
phia. He became dissatisfied and quit. On his return home, he 
learned that a man of his description was wanted in Pennfield, Clear- 
field county, and, on going there, was found to fill the bill, and given 
charge of the school in October, 1872. The people there were 
mostly Yankees, and, Yankee-like, favored good schools. He soon 
found that they were favorable to grading the school. He labored 
diligently to promote this sentiment, talking and arguing in its be- 
half upon every favorable opportunity, and, finally, in the spring 
of 1873 the board of directors decided to grade, ordered the new 
building, and friend Marsden was happy. The building was finished 
that year, and is completely modern in all its details, provided with 
patent desks, heated with furnaces, with the grounds, is estimated to 
be worth ;^IS,ooo, and is the finest building in that section of the 
country. That fall he was appointed its principal, at a salary of 
St,ooo for ten months, and the best evidence of his success lies in 
the fact that he has held the same position ever since, a period of 
six years. The opposition engendered by the expense of the new 
departure was at times outspoken, but has completely subsided, leav- 
ing Marsden master of the field, with a petition at his back praying 
that he continue to " hold the fort." Several of his pupils since 
passing from under his instruction have graduated at State normal 
sc;:Ools, in an attendance of one year. In addition to his work in 
the school-room, he has attended county institutes in Blair, Cam- 
bria, and Clearfield ; been to the State's Teachers' Association at 
Greensburg, Lancaster, Williamsport, Philadelphia, and West 
Chester ; spent about two weeks at the Centennial ; in August, 1875, 
got married to Miss Mariha M. Woodward, and now resides at 
Pennfield. 

To complete his course at Millersville, he had incurred a debt of 
five or six hundred dollars, of which he duly relieved himself, and 



42 CLASS OF iS6S. 



thus hath history recorded the "ups and downs" in the Hfe of our 
fellow classmate, George Marsden. 

We have not wings; we cannot soar, 

But we have feet to scale and climb, 
By slow degrees, l^y more and more, 
The cloudy summits of our time. 



D. McMullen, Money- at- Law, Lancastet, Pa. 

Pleads guilty to having felt wiser when he left our venerable A/ma 
Mater, than he ever will again. After the stirring events of " final 
examination," and the rich feast of eloquence of commencement 
dav, he retired to his home in the northern part of Lancaster county 
for a i^^ weeks, to digest his new greatness, eat blackberries, and — 
harvest oats. His amusement was brief, for a summons from the 
oil regions, instigated by Professor Brooks, soon reached him, re- 
questing that he put in an appearance as principal of the public 
schools of Venango City, and that his replication be filed at once. 
His case headed the list, and he made defense by opening the schools 
— four in number — on the first Monday in September. They were 
tolerably well graded, and occupied a comfortable school-building 
on the south side of the Allegheny river, commanding a beautiful 
view of Oil City and the surrounding county. 

He had under his management about three hundred pupils, and 
for assistants, he retained the services of three ladies. This trial 
lasted through the whole term of eight months, and the jury of the 
vicinage gave him a very favorable verdict. We did not learn the 
amount of his fee. A successful lawyer is seldom long without a 
case, and our friend Mack was soon retained by Superintendent 
Snyder, of Clearfield, in the suit of one of Snyder's " County Nor- 
mal Schools," located at Glen Hope, that county, vs. public igno- 
rance. He took up this case about the middle of May, 1869, find- 
ing it a school of all grades, from teacher down to a, b, c, Darian. 
This was the toughest school case of his whole life. He organized 
a model department, which was prosecuted under his supervision, by 
his advanced pupils. The classes of this department recited in the 
rear end of the school-room, while he himself was engaged with the 
advanced classes in the other. This was equity, at the expense of 
law and order, but notwithstanding the adverse circumstances, the 
verdict was favorable to the plaintiffs, and ignorance lost. One of 



SECOXD DISTRICT NORMAL SCHOOL. 



43 



his pupils in this school was Mr. Charles W. Rishel, who afterwards 
became a very successful student of the old Normal herself. At the 
same time, our friend Watson Cornell was engaged in prosecuting a 
similar case at Luthersburg, but as their courts were far apart, and 
the roads bad, they never met to compare notes. He closed his 
term at Glen Hope about the middle of August, and immediately 
repaired again to Venango City, to take up his second term there. 
Here, with oil all around him, it naturally soaked into his brain, 
and lubricated his conception, otherwise your historian cannot ac- 
count for his sudden sliding away from the profession of teaching, 
into that of law. He put himself under instruction of Hugh Gra- 
ham, Esq., of the Venango county bar, until the close of his 
term in April, 1S70; then resigned his position as principal, came 
to Lancaster, entered the law office of S. H. Reynolds, Esq., where 
he continued his studies until admitted to the bar, December 14, 
1S7J. Since then he has steadily and successfully practiced his new 
prufession, in the same office. On January 6, 1874, he took to 
himself as wife Miss Sue Lightner, of Lancaster, went to housekeeping 
on .\-[)x\\ I, following, has two girl babies, is a member of the Lan- 
caster city council, was a delegate to the late convention at Pitts- 
burgh, where he helped to nominate the next Governor of Peiinsyl- 
vania — A. H. Dill, and is credited with mauy other good acts. He 
resides in his own house, No. 222 East Orange street, where all his 
classmates and friends are invited to call, your historian being able 
to testify to the e.xcellence of his hospitality, for he has enjoyed it. 

"When e'er a noble deed is wrought, 
Wlien e'er is spolien a noljle thouglit, 

Our souls, in glad surprise, 

To higher levels rise. 

The tidal wave of deeper souls. 
Into our inmost being rolls. 

And lifts us unawares, 

Out of all meaner cares. 



rioni->r to those whose words or dee<ls. 
Thus help us in our daily needs. 
And, by their overflow, 
Raise us from what is low. 



44 



CLASS OF iS68. 



Prof. W. 8. McPHERRA/V , of B/airsvi//e. Jefferson county. Pa. 

Claims to have devoted his entire attention, since graduation, to 
confusing and abusing the youth of this beloved land of stripes and 
frequently also of stars. The fear of being charged with egotism is 
all that deters him from pronouncing himself a complete success in 
that line. He is married, of course, and since his marriage his wife, 
from the force of example, we suppose, has adopted the same pro- 
fession. Being somewhat eccentric, as is plainly shown by her 
choice of husband, she has persistently insisted in not admitting 
more than one pupii, and, much to McPherran's discomfiture and 
baldness she has selected him for the viccim. This is an illustration 
of "the doctrine of natural selection." A noted author, in speaking 
of marriage, says: "Domestic infelicity is earth's most fiery hell," 
but, aside from this opinion, McPherran, judging from the dejected 
and cowed visage of his classmates, thinks matrimony is earth's most 
curtain-lectured and stormy pathway. Nothwithstanding his ex- 
perience of six years married life, he has a luxuriant growth of hair, 
all his own, aud he gives notice that he don't want the members of 
the class to nudge each other and insinuate that it was produced by 
the aid of restoratives. Should they disregard this caution, he will 
declare their unwarranted insiiuiations base and malicious fiilsehoods, 
such as can emanate only from the bosoms of henpecked husbands. 
One of the most distinguishing incidents of his life, and which must 
necessarily be of great interest to all of his classmates, is the singular 
and most wonderful coincidences of his wife's and his weddings. 
They were married in the same State, county, ciry, street, parsonage, 
on the .same day, at the same hour, and by the same parson, who 
got the same fee for both jobs. Professionally he has filled positions, 
most of the time as principal, in eight counties, viz : Mount Union, 
Huntingdon county ; New Holland, Lancaster county; Sewickley, 
Allegheny county ; Bellefonte, Center county ; Ebensburg, Cambria 
county ; Coudersport, Potter county ; Wilcox, Elk county, and 
Brookville, Jefferson county ; and in four Sates, viz : Pennsylvania, 
single-blessedness, matrimony, and, sincemarriage, has held a position 
in the state of aljjeci submissiveness. Some years he has been offered 
as many as half a dozen situations, and, upon one occasion, in .Alle- 
gheny county, they wished to pay him S125 to continue in charge 
of a school wherein none of his predecessors had ever received more 
than J50. During three years of his teaching he has not used any 



SECOND DISTRICT NORMAL SCHOOL. 



45 



corporal punishment; yet he is not proud, even in the sHghtest degree. 
On the contrary, he shows penitence in confessing one very grave de- 
fect in his teaching. This defect lie claims to be able to trace to tlie 
instruction he received in the model school under the superin- 
tendency of Professor Montgomery, and is the only fault he can 
justly lay to that gentleman's charge ; it is that of persistently advo- 
cating the cramming system— every Thanksgiving day. In the way 
of health he has suffered some. Since graduating, he has frequently 
been threatened with a rush of brains to the head, i)ut thanks, very 
many thanks, to the watchful care and angelic ministrations of Mrs. 
McPherran, he has thus far escaped the alarming consequences, but 
who knows that at any moment he may live. For some years past 
he has been greatly afflicted with a rush of nose to the face, which 
his wife has endeavored to reduce by fretjuently poulticing with pot 
sticks and number eight shoes, still it continues to expand, and he 
seeks consolation by contemplating it before the glass, smoothing 
down his moustache. 

He thinks that by the aforesaid, aforementioned, preceding, pre- 
lude, his classmates may be convinced that he, as every good man 
should be, is abundantly blessed with a good wife, for he can truth- 
fully exclaim, in the modified language of the Psalmist: "Before 
I was afflicted I went astray, but now keep I her commandments." 
Their union has been blessed with two healthy, promising boys, 
Guy and Roy. When they were married Mrs. McPherran's father 
was worth $100,000, but he has since paid the coal and oil l)ills con- 
tracted during their protracted engagement, which has considerably 
reduced his cash on hand. Mr. and Mrs. McPherran intend to make 
teaching their life work, until worn out and superannuated, then 
they will go into partnership with an undertaker, and turn their at- 
tention to medicine. Mrs. McP. was formerly Miss Laura Bare. 

It was by request that friend McPherran went back to the dear 
old Normal days, and endeavored to exhume the ludicrous part of 
himself, which was almost dormant by disuse. He wishes it under- 
stood, if he has failed to amuse and carry us back to our school 
days, that it is because he has forgotten how. For over nine years 
he has been traveling with his face toward the Celestial City, and 
hopes to have been the humble instrument, in the hands of his 
Maker, of much eternal good. 



A little nonsense now and then, 
I.S relished by the best of men. 



46 



CLASS OF iS6S. 



Prof. W. F. OVER HOLT, of Rising Sun, Cecil county. Md. 

In a short time after graduating at MillersviUe, became vice-princi- 
pal of the Attleboro' Friends' Institute, of Bucks county. Pa., at 
that time in charge of W. T. Seal. Ke taught there one year, then 
resigned for the purpose of studying the languages at the Doylestown 
EngUsh and Classical Seminary. In the spring of 1870, he retired 
to his home to rest and recruit health, and by the fall of that year 
was ready to accept the offer of a lucrative situation as teacher in 
Lancaster county. Having closed a two-years career of successful 
teaching in the public schools of Pennsylvania, bemg relieved from 
the obligation he entered into with the State, and entitled to his 
master diploma, he, by special request, taught a select school for the 
Friends in the vicinity of Penn Hill, Lancaster county. Here he 
was engaged during eighteen months of the years 1872 and 1S73, 
and as there was no suitable building to be had in which to continiie 
the school, it was thought best to close it. 

Upon leaving Penn Hill, he took charge of the Chestnut Level 
Academy, in Lancaster county, where he taught during the years of 
1874 and 1875, ^'^d which position he resigned for the more profit- 
able one of principal of the Rising Sun Normal Institute. This last 
situation he has continued to hoid ever since, opening his third year 
on the 25th of last March, with the most encouraging prospects. 
He has made good use of his time in the past ten years, in gradu- 
ally advancing, not only professionally, but also educationally, in 
way of linguistic acquirements. He has a retentive memory, as is 
evinced by the fact that around it cluster most pleasant recollections 
of his teachers and classmates, and the measure of his success he at- 
tributes, in a large degree, to the wholesome discipline and thorough 
knowledge imparted by normal training, and he adds, to the good 
advice of our beloved and honored principal's farewell address. 

Overholt is a good, economical housekeeper ; a cool, calculating 
financier ; qualities which the rigorous panic of the past several 
years was probably the means of instillingi or at least stimulating. 
Upon this conclusion we can well stake our reputation as a reliable 
and accurate historian, for our information is authentic, that on the 
4th day of April, 1876, he gave ocular demonstration of the fact, 
by marrying Miss Laura E. Penny, of Drumore, Lancaster county. 
He takes care of the pennies, the dollars will take care of themselves. 
He informs us, in the most touching tones, that he will ever look 



SECOXD DISTRICT NORMAL SCHOOL. 



back with the most tender recollections to the time he acquired his 
first Penny. It marks an epoch in his life. Marrying for wealth is 
a thing we do not approve of, yet we have every reason to believe 
that friend Overholt is happy in his domestic relations, for he can 
boast of a son, which some of us can not. 

BEN C. RICH , Gmngef, of Spring Brook Form, Tioga county, 

Kansas, 

On leaving the Normal school, entered into an engagement as teacher 
with A. B. Ivans, of the Fifteenth and Race streets school, Philadel- 
phia. Associated with him was our friend Charlie Walton. As 
"old Ivans" and he were not congenial spirits, the engagement 
would not last, and in December, 1868, he took Horace Greeley's 
advice, and went West. That winter he taught school four miles 
south of Calamus, in Clinton county, Iowa, at a salary of forty-two 
dollars per month. His scholars were rough ones, not unlike the 
Hoosier schoolmaster's Flat Creekers, some of them being known 
as the " VVapsie Tigers," but they were warm-hearted and generous 
to a fault, and when they found that "that city chap" could eat 
corn dodgers with the best of them, ride as well, run faster, and 
shoot straighter, they were ready to accord to him their respect and 
their warmest greetings. Vou, see education had not made him 
"stuck up." 

The summer of 1869 was an eventful one in our friend's career. 
Being too proud to teach a country school, and not succeeding in 
getting a more satisfactory situation, he was left without any em- 
ployment. For three months he traveled across and through the 
northern and central parts of Iowa, at first, independently, but, as 
he soon ran out of mo/jey, he was reduced to a " tramp's" mode 
of locomotion, and as 



"A fellow feeling makes us wondrous kind," 

he to this day retains a warm spot in his heart for tramps. Necessity 
was ever the mother of invention, and Rich's necessity was no ex- 
ception to the general rule, for he resorted to the "dodge" of look- 
ing out for a suitable farm to locate, by which means he enlisted 
the interest of every man who had a farm to sell, and hence was 
entertained and drove about as if he were a millionaire. By perse- 
verance in this way. coupled with plenty of "cheek," and putting 



48 CLASS OF iS6S. 



in a few long walks — one he remembers of being sixty miles — he 
succeeded in reaching Fulton, Illinois, where our friend Tom Ruth 
at that time was principal of the public schools. Tom advanced 
him a loan sufficient to get him out home, that is to where he had 
been staying the previous winter. Being entirely out of money, he 
spent the ne-xt few months at farming, carpentering, harvesting, 
gardening, buying hogs, &:c., in fact doing anything by which he 
could earn an honest dollar. He regards the sumrner of 1869, as 
the turning point of his life, for it fixed upon him habits of industry 
and economy, two most important elements of success. 

During all this time he never lost an opportunity of attending 
any convention that assembled in his part of Iowa. With good 
clothes and a fair education, he always termed the acquaintance ot 
leading men in various parts of the State, and in this manner came 
in contact with persons who had positions to offer. One time he 
walked most of the way from Calamus, in Clinton county, to Marion, 
in Linn county, to attend a convention of the Grand Lodge of Good 
Templars, the whole trip costing him less than two dollars. At 
Marion, he made the acquaintance of W. G. C. T., Mr. R. J. 
Couch, the superintendent of Clinton county, who secured for him 
a position as teacher, at fifty dollars per month, at Unity, Independ- 
ent district, near Delbitt, Iowa, where he remained one year. Mr. 
Couch introduced him to the Hon. N. A. Merrill, (now State 
Senator,) who kindly furnished him books, and took him under his 
supervision as a law student. In September, 1870, he obtained the 
principalship of the Camanche public schools, where he also re- 
mained for one year. In October of the same year, he was granted 
an Iowa State teacher's certificate, and the following December was 
admitted to the practice of law. In March, 1871, he married 
Jennie E. Koon, one of his teachers, and the following June he 
gave up teaching for the purpose of practicing his chosen profession. 
He visited his family and friends in Pennsylvania until September, 
then returned to the West, and settled in Bloomfield township, 
Clinton county, Iowa. During the year preceding October 15, 
1S71, three railroads had made a junction in Bloomfield township, 
and our friend believing the prospects fair of this becoming a busi- 
ness place, surveyed and plotted the town of Delmar. This work 
he completed in February, 1872. The following month he began 
the erection of a dwelling, which he completed in June, and was 
the first permanent house in Delmar. Others followed, and he soon 



SECOND DISTRICT NORMAL SCHOOL. 49 

succeeded in building up a nice little practice. In fact it increased 
so rapidly that in July, 1875, Tom Ruth went to Delmar, and the 
two formed a partnership, under the firm name of Rich & Ruth. 
They worked together until the ist of April, 1878, when Rich's 
healtii not being good, he sold his property, and transferred all his 
business to Ruth, then buying an emigrant outfit, consisting of a 
covered wagon and team, he, his wife, and their two little boys, 
started to Kansas. They journeyed through Iowa and north-west 
Missouri, entering Kansas at White Cloud ; then taking up their 
line of march south and west, until he finally found a location to 
suit him on Big Creek, in Trego county, Kansas. Here he took up 
Government land, preempting one hundred and sixty acres, and 
taking a timber claim of one hundred and sixty acres more, making in 
all three hundred and twenty, being the west one half of section 22, 
in township 13, south of Range 22 west, in Trego county. His 
farm has an abundance of water, a good rock quarry, but no tim- 
ber, no timber being in that section of the State ; but as all the 
settlers are planting trees, they expect soon to have plenty of it. 
The creek is full of excellent fish, the prairie abounds in game, an- 
telopes being plenty, but quite wild. His house consists of a " dug 
out" in the side of a hill, 12x16 in size, with board roof His 
wagon top serves as a sleeping apartment. His nearest neighbor 
lives two miles north-east of him, and his next nearest four miles 
north-west. His post office is Ellis, Ellis county, eleven miles away, 
and he gets no daily paper. He intends putting up a house soon, 
and as his health has improved so fast, he thinks he will never again 
go back to professional life. 

So when fond recollection stirs to life within us the memories of 
our classmates, may we not forget that away out in Kansas — 

There doth the kindly farmer man 

HLs labors quick begin, 
He digs his acres o'er, and puts 

The seedling luurphy in. 
And, as he covers o'er the gaps, 

His agile hoe has dug, 
He thinks of forty cures he'll try 

To kill the " later " bug. 

(jive fools their gold, and knaves their power ; 

Let Fortune's bubbles rise or fall ; 
Who sows a field, or trains a flower. 

Or plants a tree, is more than all. 



50 CLASS OF iS6S. 



Prof. GEO. C. RUTH, of Millville, Columbia county . Pa. 

After graduating, first practiced his profession by teaching at Mt. 
Joy, Lancaster county. " Mt. Joy" is evidently a misnomer to 
him, for he says that in the first place he never was able to see the 
mount, and in the second place, so far as he was concerned, at least 
for a few months, there was but little y'l^y around. Notwithstanding 
this dilemma, he still looks back upon his first year's labors as suc- 
cessful, for, during that time, he ascertained that there was still 
something to be learned. In the fall of 1869, he took charge of a 
school in AUentown, which he retained for seven years. His expe- 
rience in AUentown he claims to have been both beneficial and profit- 
able. This is probably true, from the fact that m the fall of 1873, 
the most important event of his life, up to that time, occurred, viz : 
His marriage with Miss L. Mackintosh, one of the lady teachers of 
AUentown. He left us to guess the event, but as historians should 
take no dangerous risks, we made due inquiry of parties well ac- 
quainted with the facts. Besides himself and wife, his family now 
consists of Miss May J. Ruth, three years old, and George Ruth, 
junior, seven weeks old. In the summer of 1876, he left AUentown 
to take the position of teacher in the " Doylestown English and 
Classical Seminary." Near Doylestown, Bucks county, he had spent 
the first sixteen years of his life. He remained but one year in this 
position. At present he is principal of Greenwood Seminary, at 
Millville, Columbia county, Pa., which position is in many re- 
spects much the most desirable he has yet held. The town is situated 
amid the most beautiful and romantic scenery, and being free from 
the manifold vices of the large cities, it can boast of a healthy moral 
tone. 

Truth forever ou the scaffoM, 
Wrong- forever on the throne, 
Yet that scaffold sways the future, 
An<l lieliind the dim unknown 
Standetli God within tlie shadow. 
Keeping watch above His own. 



SECOND DISTRICT NORMAL SCHOOL. 



51 



Rev. GEO. H. SLAYBAUGH. of New Kingston, Cumberland 

county, Pa. 

During the winter of 1868-69, taught a district school in Adams 
county, ot which county he is a native. The term was but four 
months. About the first of March, 1869, lie wa% elected principal 
of the public schools of Shippensburg, Cumberland county. Pa., to 
succeed our classmate, Mr. A. D. Eisenhower, by whose means he 
obtained the situation. He accepted this position, entering upon 
his duties about the first of the following April, and continued in it, 
at quite a lucrative salary, until at the close of the schools in the 
spring of 1872, when he began the study of the languages, prepara- 
tory to entering a tlieological seminary, as he had some time pre- 
vious to this concluded to adopt the Lutheran ministry, as his field 
of labor for life. The coming fill, he entered the seminary at 
Gettysburg, and remained one year, then left to attend the theo- 
logical department of Wittenberg College, at Springfield, Ohio, 
where he completed his theological course, and received his diploma 
on June 10, 1874. He was licensed to preach in the August fol- 
lowing, and received and accepted a call to Mt. Zion charge, in 
Richland county, Ohio, May 17, 1874, entering 'upon his duties as 
pastor on the first of the following September. This charge he 
served three years, when his health failed, and he was compelled 
to resign, and removing to Shippensburg, he spent the summer and 
fall of 1877 in recuperating. On the first of the following Decem- 
ber, the New Kingston charge, of Cumberland county, was offered 
him, which he accepted, and is now serving. 

His success in the profession of teaching was good. Neither his 
Ahna Mater nor his classmates need be ashamed of owning him, for 
his work is vocal with his praise, and after announcing his intention 
of relinquishing teaching, he might again have commanded his 
former position at Sliippensburg, at almost any salary, which is of 
itself one of the best signs that his labors were both successful and 
appreciated. 

In the ministerial field, we can claim for him at least etjual suc- 
cess, for his work has been very marked as to permanence ; so in 
whatever sphere of usefulness he has been called to act, he hath 
proven himself " a workman that needeth not to be ashamed." 

As an evidence that he won the love and respect of those whom 
he taught, might be cited the fact, that on the iSthof August, 1874, 



52 



CLASS OF 1868. 



he was married to Miss Annie Law, formerly a pupil. She has 
proven herself a /awful and most worthy spouse ever since, dili- 
gently assisting and encouraging him in the grave and responsible 
duties of pastor, and rendering home cheerful and life pleasant and 
happy, instead of burdensome. One little girl, their only child, is 
the life and joy of their home. 



EDWARD STOVER, 

Died 

At Harkisburcj, P,\., 

July SI, 1870, 
Aged 21 years 10 monUls ami 9 d.ays. 



There is no flock, however watcliert and tended. 

But one dead lamb is tliere ; 
There is no fireside howsoe'er defended, 

But has one vacant chair. 



OBITUARY. . 

Read at the Alumini meeting, July, 1S71 : 

Fellow-classmates : Edward Stover is no more Three years ago 
we sat upon this platform ready to receive our diplomas. Then we 
were a happy, unbroken band of thirty-five, just let loose from a 
long term of rigorous study. 

"And joyous of our conquest early won," were without a care, 
some of us, perhaps, without a thought of the future, light-hearted 
and full of hope, never once thinking the solemn though pertinent 
thought : " WTio of us will be first called hence ?" 

Our aspirations led us so eagerly on, and so completely engaged 
our attention, that a cold indifference was about to settle upon our 
friendship and intimacy as classmates, when, unexpectedly, death 
suddenly and sadly reminds us of life's uncertainty and our duty 
and love to the living. We are no more an unbroken band, as on 
that gay, ever memorable commencement day. 

At our annual social reunions it is now no longer possible for 
every seat to have its occupant ; one chair, at least, is vacant. 



SECOND DISTRICT NORMAL SCHOOL. 



53 



Edward Stover was born on the 2gth of September, 1848, in 
Londonderry township, Dauphin county, State of Pennsylvania. 

While yet quite young, his parents moved to Middletown, where 
he attended the public schools of the place. Manifesting, almost 
from childhood, a particularly strong preference for books, the sports, 
mirth, and enjoyments that have such a fascinating influence over 
the young generally, failed to wean him from his home and studies. 
And, being the only child, his parents naturally indulged his in- 
clinations, and early concluded to give him as complete and thorough 
an education as means would procure, or encouraging words could 
induce. In September, 1865, being then seventeen years old, he 
entered the Millersville State Normal School, with full intention of 
graduating in the Elementary course, which he did, with the rest of 
us, on the i6th of July, 1868. While here, all of us must admit 
that he was as close and hard-working a student as ever passed the 
portals of our Alma Mater. Those of us who can, even yet, hardly 
see how we could have employed our time better, or directed our 
minds more intently upon our studies, cannot say that in assiduous 
application and economizing of time we were not excelled by him 
whom we mourn. Often would some of us, who were his most in- 
timate companions and confidants, meet him in his room, since oc- 
cupied by strangers, or in the hall now echoing to the tread of other 
footsteps, with his cheek flushed and brow feverish, and a cordial 
grasp of the hand, now cold in death, would startle us with its heat, 
all the effect of hard study. Nor was there any remission in his 
labors. Constantly he toiled and tugged with a zeal and persistence 
that won the admiration, (if not the approval,) of every considerate 
observer ; and, although his diligence did sometimes prostrate him, 
so he was unable to appear in his classes, yet none of us " played 
off sick " less than did Edward Stover. 

Among us he was not particularly noted for bright recitations in 
studies requiring severe e.xercise of the reason ; he excelled mainly in 
memorizing, often reciting long passagesof the lesson with astonishing 
rapidity and accuracy. The general characteristics of his mind would 
impress the close observer with the idea that his was principally a 
self-acquired education, an independent, self-seeking, and self-search- 
ing of knowledge, rather than a carefully guided and prepared in- 
struction from others. 

After leaving Millersville he entered Dickinson College, at Car- 
lisle, in September, 1868, intending to complete a classical course 



54 



CLASS OF i86S. 



preparatory to his entering the study of lavv, which profession he 
designed to follow. He remained at college two full years, where 
he was noted for the same industry that characterized all his actions 
while here, pursuing the same course of earnest, unremitting study 
that he followed while our classmate, and leading the same blameless, 
inoffensive life. He stood well in his classes, was never found in bad 
company, treated his fellow-students and all with becoming respect, 
while the vanities, follies, and frivolities of college life found no ob- 
ject of embodiment in him. On holidays and vacations, instead of 
spending the time with his companions in seeking pleasure or idling, 
he invariably turned his back to all festivites, and visited his home. 
A trait in his character which was sometimes innocently ridiculed, 
yet one deserving the highest commendation, for we cannot love 
home to well, or prize the dear ones too highly. Oh, how much 
better would this inhospitable world of ours be, were such a distin- 
guishing feature of every character ; instead of a weakness it is one 
of the noblest virtues, and should be emulated. 

It was our pleasure to meet him a number of times while at Dick- 
inson, and always found him cheerful and sincerely glad to meet a 
former classmate. From his conversation he was evidently rapidly 
improving himself in general knowledge, command of words, and 
fluency of expression ; his room displayed an e.xercise of care and 
taste, and was usually selected in a part of the building where there 
was the least possible occasion for noise, so as not to be disturbed 
in his studies. He had entered his name with Hon. James H. Gra- 
ham, of Carlisle, as a student of law, and before he died had read 
nearly all the elementary books of the law, required by the rules 
of our courts, for admission to the bar. From his close application 
to his legal studies, his comrades at college named him "Judge," 
not derisively, but seemingly with great respect. In conversation 
with his preceptor, we learned that he entertained a good and hopeful 
opinion concerning his pupil, and pronounced him proficient in his 
studies so far as examined. The study of law he had commenced 
some years before entering his name as a regular law student, and 
was occasionally examined by, and received instruction from, Elias 
Hollinger, Esq., and Judge Mumma, of Harrisburg. Judge Mumma 
was upon one occasion heard remarking, that he never saw a boy 
study as assiduously as did Edward Stover. 

In July, 1870, during the very warm days of our commencement, 
when we were mercifully permitted to joyously meet and greet each 



SECOND DISTRICT NORMAL SCHOOL. 55 

Other with smihng faces and hearty grasps, within these walls, our 
lamented classmate was laid upon his bed of death, with typhoid 
fever. We missed him, but who of us guessed the cause of his ab- 
sence ? Not one. For nearly a fortnight he continued getting 
worse ; it was becoming painfully evident that death, 

"That after many a painful lileeding step, 
Conducts us to our home, and leads us safe 
On the long wished-for shore," 

was Hearing, and would finally claim him as his own. On the 31st 
of July, in the city of Harrisburg, the voice that echoed "Santa 
Filomena," was hushed forever. In order, the first orator upon the 
programme of our clasS; and the first in the "Voyage of Life" to 
step ashore ; the first to be invested with the honors of the Elements 
at commencement, and the first to find rest and peace, and be known 
of the Good Shepherd "Within the Fold." While some of us 
exulted in being crowned with the green laurels of Master, his brow 
had to bear the heat and pain of the fearful fever that was rapidly 
ending his earthly existence, yet opening for him a glorious com- 
mencement day, to receive a Master Diploma bearing the seal of im- 
mortality and the signature of the Great Teacher. 

He died not without a hope. In his dying words he breathes 
fervent declarations of love for Jesus, and 

" sure the la.st end 
Of the good man is peace ! 
How calm his exit ! 

Night dews fall not more gentlj' to the 
Ground. Nor weary, worn out winds 
E.Npire so soft." 

The only hope of fond, devoted parents is gone in our classmate. 
He was their all. No earthly blessing can compensate them for 
this loss ; nothmg dearer had they on earth, not their own lives, 
than the object of which they have been bereaved ; no other sorrow, 
no earthly sacrifice, within the wide domain of thought, would they 
have refused to undergo, so this cup might have been spared them. 
Yet its very dregs they have been compelled to drink. Holidays, 
and the close of school, no more bring home to the longing mother 
her son; home is desolate, for no "Light in the Window" brings in 
the absent one ; books and satchel stii to life many vivid recollec- 
tions, but to remember is but to lament ; guilded ovals enclose his 



56 



CLASS OF iSbS. 



life-like features, yet poor is the consolation they afford ; they but 
inquire — 

" Can storied urn, or animated bust, 

Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath? " 

Faults the deceased may have had, for what human being has not? 
But as " We hve in Deeds," all the virtues we can claim for, and the 
cold impious world is obliged to concede him, are safe, for death 
has set a seal to them for all time to come; but those we, his surviv- 
ing classmates, dare think ours, are still in doubt, for the unguarded 
moments of human frailty are many; lapse of time may unsettle 
our title, and when we deem ourselves most securely invested, we 
may be left without a possession. Let this bereavement not be with- 
out its valuable lesson to us all. 

He died young. Death hath all seasons for his own. Life spread 
out glorious prospects for him ; " Our Nation's Growth" was about 
to supply him with a life-work, and while the admonition: " You 
are Wanted at the Front," was supplying him with " Inspiration " for 
the dawning struggle, all orders relating to him are countermanded 
by his summon to Head-quarters for a final promotion. 

He now rests from his severe labors ; he is silently sleeping his 
final sleep, awaiting the trump of the archangel, for 

"The time draw.s on 
Wiien not a single spot of burial earth, 
Wliether on land or in the spacious sea. 
But must give back its long-ooinuiitted 
Dust inviolate; and faithfully shall these 
Make up the full account." 



Peace to his ashes, and honor to his memory ! 



ED\N^RD STOVER. 

An extract from a letter received from a classmate. 

"As I think of my class, and call up the faces of its different mem- 
bers, the boyish and ingenious one of poor Stover comes. His was 
a short career, and his the first link that was broken in the chain 
that bound us together as classmates. Do not forget in your meet- 
ings to make some kindly mention of him ; say something that would, 
if he were with you, stir his heart to more generous pulsations. What 
the dead know we know not, and it may be that they are sometime 
nearer us than we think." 



SECOND DISTRICT NORMAL SCHOOL. 



57 



y\IM. D. WEAVER, of Lancaster City, 

After leaving his Alma Mater, accepted the position of principal 
teacher of the Soldiers' Orphan School at Titusville, Pa., where he 
commenced teaching January, i, 1868. Here he remained until the 
_ middle of the following August, when he tendered his resignation on 
account of the close confinement required of him. While employed 
here, Gordon S. Berry was proprietor of the school, and J. N. Beistle, 
A. M., one of our fellow graduates, was principal. His experience 
was of an arduous nature, but he retains pleasant recollections thereof 
and bears willing testimony to the worth and efficiency of Soldiers' 
Orphan Schools. Some of the pupils he here taught have since 
graduated at Vassar, MillersviUe, Edinboro', and other high institu- 
tions of learning. From August, i860, to August, 1870, he em- 
ployed his time in clerking and working on his father's farm. Al- 
though offered several situations as teacher, meanwhile, he, on ac- 
count of unremunerative salaries, declined them. In the fall of 1870 
the people of Wiikes-Barre wanted a good Weaver, and elected him 
principal of the Franklin Grammar School, in which situation he 
remained until the close of the school year. He here had under his 
supervision from four hundred to six hundred pupils, which made a 
corps of assistants necessary, and his employers, knowing that he 
was not only a bachelor by degree but also in esse, provided him 
with ten lady teachers, some of whom were graduates of Normal 
schools and very fair ; but faint heart never won, and to this day he 
has remained a bachelor forlorn. The people of Wilkes-Barre mani- 
fested much interest in education, the Franklin Grammar School 
being one of the finest and best arranged schools in the State, and 
although they paid friend Weaver a salary of S70 per month, it, with 
all the other attractions, could not induce him to remain. In Sep- 
tember, 1 87 1, he became principal of the high school at Couders- 
port. Potter county, Pa., where he remained two years, during which 
time he had under him, as students, many of the teachers of Potter 
county. Here he received for his services S75 per month lor the 
first year, and S85 per month for the second year, the increase be- 
ing the best possible evidence of his success. He speaks very highly 
of the educational sentiment of the people of that section, and cher 
ishes the most pleasant recollections of their uniform courtesy. He 
had now taught one year in the oil regions, one year in the coal re- 
gions, and two in the lumber regions, and given the profession a 



58 CLASS OF 1868. 



fair trial ; so he concluded to lay his honors meekly by and become 
a disciple of Blackstone. On the 3d of October, 1873, he registered 
his name with the Hon. Wm. Aug. Atlee as student of the law, and 
on the 13th of November, 1875, was admitted as a member of the 
Lancaster county bar. Since then he has engaged at his chosen pro- 
fession, and met with all the success he had anticipated, and he pur- 
poses continuing where he commenced. With him the latch string' 
is also always out, and he desires to have it known that he is pleased 
at any time to socially entertain his friends. Since our graduation, 
he has visited his Alma Mater on several commencement days ; was 
one of the orators at the Page anniversary in 1870, president at the 
anniversary in 1877, is president elect of the Normal Alumni to 
meet in 1880, and wherever he has been located he has always taken 
an active part in some literary organization. 

"These clever statistical cliaps 

Declare the numerical run 
Of women and men in the world. 

Is twenty to twenty and one ; 
And hence, in the pairing, you see. 

Since wooing and wedding began, 
For every connubial .score, 

They've got a superlluous man." 

Out of the twenty young men that graduated in the class of 18618, 
he is the only bachelor; but as he is affable, handsome, and agree- 
able, and as Lancaster is full of marriageable ladies, we need not be 
surprised if ere long we hear of him appearing in cupid's special ses- 
sion, and after this fashion make his plea : 

"Permit me, dearest, to report 

Myself, on tliis occasion, . 

Quite ready to proceed to Court, 
And File my Declaration. 

Or, since you've really no Defense, 

Why not, this present Session, 
Omitting all absurd pretense. 

Give judgment by Confession? 

So shall you be my lawful wife; 

And I — your faithful lover — 
Be Tenant of your lieart for Life, 

Witli no Remainder over." 



SECOND DISTRICT NORMAL SCHOOL. 



59 



d. ZEAMER. of Columbia. 

Left school much ashamed of being called a graduate, and yet know- 
ing nothing. So he said, but others saw he felt surprised that one 
small head could contain all he knew. First, on the farm he gleaned 
with gentle effort ; then he drove the team afield, and broke the 
stubborn glebe ; then he peddled books, and sold some on credit, 
which are still unpaid. This last was unpoetical, but had a truly 
educating effect. ' It was better than a conditioning principle. Next 
he applied for an ungraded public school, and would have got it, 
had it not been for the other fellow. That was another lesson. 
Then a country school, near Mechanicsburg, was offered him, which 
he taught six months without being discharged for incompetency. 
This encouraged him much, and he yields to the advice of friends, 
and the promptings of his own vanity — especially the vanity — and 
becomes a candidate for the superintendency of common schools of 
Cumberland county. Though a Millersville graduate, he did not 
look down on common things. There is a tide in the affairs of men. 
So it was with him. Fate tied down his vaulting ambition, and 
spared Cumberland county the infliction. Our hero thought light- 
ning had struck him. Back he comes to the Normal, to reorganize 
his shattered forces and fix up for a fresh start. He studies geom- 
etry, and experiments on several classes who were in want of a 
teacher, until the summer session ended, when it was thought safe 
for him to strike out again. Timidly he ventures forth. He is 
offered a graded school in the village of Churchtown, Cumberland 
county. He accepts, but on his own terms, which were never ful- 
filled. Somewhat sobered by experience, he now settles down to 
work in a way verging on the sensible. During the day he taught, 
and in the evening he read and studied in his school-room, where 
the first five months of his term he spent all his evenings but four- 
teen, counting Sundays. Such close application made him a mys- 
tery to captious patrons. He received letters and notes, some 
anonymous, some otherwise, but only one belligerent mother had 
courage to approach him personally, and she did so with tears, and 
not with a broomstick. Ah ! those tears were not tears of joy ! 
The curtain falls. Scene the next. Time, the summer following. 
Our redoubtable pedagogue is master of (juite a full and prosperous 
private school in the same place, but his head is grayer, his visage 
more grim, and he wears a new set of front teeth. Formerly he 



60 



CLASS OF 1868. 



entertained opinions favorable to matrimony, but now they are all 
dispelled by his mortal dread of cross women, a dread not inherited, 
but acquired through compulsory education. 

Before finishing his summer term at Churchtown, ''The Oaks 
School," near Carlisle, was offered to him, probably by accident. 
His former patrons wanted him, but he accepts the new offer. The 
salary at the new place was the same, the school ungraded, the work 
consequently harder, and the inconveniences and expenses greater, 
which favorable conditions make the why and wherefore of his choice 
very clear, and are worth mentioning. This situation retains him two 
years, and does it without a reduction of salary. The second year 
the school was graded, and a fine new house built. He also received 
an assistant, in the person of a lady, who rendered such entire sat- 
isfaction, that he has retained her for nearly seven years. He has 
not adopted her, yet she makes herself quite officious, considers her- 
self at home in his house, sees to his linen, sews on his buttons, as- 
sumes his name, exercises her authority, even calls her children after 
him, and he submits, too, to it all. 

In the summer of 1872, he, and this said lady assistant, had a 
select school at " The Oaks," numbering among their pupils seven 
teachers, some of whom had been students at Millersville and Dick- 
inson College. Six of his pupils here were afterwards students at 
Millersville at the same time, two of whom graduated. Good might 
be said of more of them, but we are writing his history, not theirs. 
While engaged at this select school, he had a second attack of the 
superintendency complaint, which resulted as formerly, in severe 
prostration. Proper treatment and good association, however, suc- 
ceeded in eradicating all symptoms of the disease from his system, 
and he is now considered safe from any further attacks. 

On August 26, 1872, he was admitted to the Carlisle bar, imme- 
diately defended a fellow for assault and battery, lost the case, de- 
clined his fee, and started on the next train for San Antonio, Texas. 
His intention was to practice law, and western Texas, where were 
neither men, money, nor litigation, he thought, would be the best place 
in the world for a lawyer. Two months afterwards he was again 
"tenting on the old camp ground." He went, he saw, he came 
back, veni, vidi, ziiruck gekoinmen. Capricious conduct to the un- 
initiated, but easily comprehended if you are a benedict. We next 
hear of him as junior editor of " The Valley Sentinel" a Dem- 
ocratic paper, printed on both sides, at Shippensburg. Six weeks 



SECOND DISTRICT NORMAL SCHOOL. 61 



he wrought and wrote. No libel suits, no cowhidings, no duels, 
nor did any fellow come around with a double-barrelled shot gun, 
looking for the responsible editor. This was monotonous. The 
senior insists on selling out, and the junior, not being able to buy 
him out, is kicked out, and the world is minus a journalist. 

Shortly afterwards he becomes teacher of a high school near Ship- 
pensburg, the highest he had ever taught in his life. It stood on a 
hill. While teaching here in March, 1873, he received a telegram 
summoning him to a consultation at Columbia, Pa. Three weeks 
later the people of that place called him the new cashier of the Co- 
lumbia Deposit Bank. Of course, he knew nothing whatever about 
the business, but his democratic honesty atoned for ignorance. They 
wanted a man who wouldn't steal. That was five years ago. He 
is still there, balancing accounts, posting ledgers, footing columns, 
making statements, and counting other people's cash. Should you 
want to put your cash in a safe place, his services, as custodian, are 
at your command. Bell B. Benner, of the class of 1867, he now 
calls Mrs. Zeamer, and jointly they lay claim to a daughter just old 
enough to swing on the gate, bother papa for pennies to buy pret- 
zels, and ask embarrassing questions — about babies and other queer 
things. The hard times will not allow much veneering, hence you 
have this unvarnished tale. Had our subject provided us with pro- 
found and brilliant exploits, it would have been elysium to stow his 
name into the highest niclie in fame's proud temple, but he never 
gave an ambitious historian any chance. In all his struggles, his as- 
pirings, his soarings after the infinite, and divings after the unfathom- 
able, circumstances, wretched circumstances, have wielded, and 
warped, and thwarted him. Circumstances have had him for a 
shuttle-cock all his life. Throttle them? He tried throttling, and 
always got throttled. Talk to him about noble resolutions ! His 
bosom has heaved with high resolves, until he had the heart-ache, 
but they never hove him any higher. He went into the resolution 
business early. When yet a boy, at a rural school examination, a 
garrulous school director made an address, calling attention to some 
great thing some great man had done, adding, with fearful, soul- 
firing emphasis : '• Such things can only he done by the boy who 
grows pale over the midnight lamp .'" That inspired him — probably 
inflated would better express the feeling. He hastily wrote down 
the inflammatory eloquence, folded it neatly, tenderly laid it upon 
a divmely fair face he had in an ambrolype, closed the case, and 



62 



CLASS OF iS68. 



put it into a pocket near the heart. That was as solemn a vow as 
he could take at that early stage. Had there been any virtue in re- 
solving, it would have immortalized him and her too, but it didn't. 
Before next haymaking time, the girl had " gone back on him," 
but the "midnight lamp" was left. To it he clung with a despe- 
ration akin to madness, but the greatness wouldn't come. Once a 
schoolmate remarked that he was getting " pale," but he didn't tell 
his observing friend it was the effects of drinking coal oil for sore 
throat. Still he wooed the midnight lamp, and once an officious 
Normal professor, who should have been in bed at that hour of the 
night, like other honest men, rushed into his room like an infuriated 
hurricane, red with rage to the very top of his head, at such " out- 
rageous " disregard of the rules. Had he been passed through sev- 
eral more such " baptisms of fire," greatness might have come. 
Persecution only increased his desperation. On and on he went, 
wooing the midnight lamp until his nerves gave out, and he could 
not sleep, and then, if he could have got hold of that garrulous old 
school director, he would have made an e.xample of him, or of what 
he would have left of him. Often, when listening to some soul- 
stirring address, or while absorbed in the construction of some grand, 
spread-eagle figure of rhetoric, or while lost to self in windy, star 
spangled declamation, would he feel chilly sensations creeping along 
the spine, and over the shoulders. These sensations he then regarded 
as zephyrs of inspiration, or breezes stirred by the lofty soarings of 
his imagination, but since he has become dyspeptic, he finds they 
were only premonitory symptoms of liver complaint. In short, he 
has made one great, grievous mistake. In going out into the world, 
he found it a different world from what his theory had made it. 
Then, the first thing in order, was to establish an equilibrium be- 
tween them, restore harmonious intercourse, mutuality, as it were. 
This he proceeds to do, by standing upon the world's back, then 
reaching down, catches it by its ample ears, and endeavors to haul 
it up to the level of his imagination, and it wouldn't come. He 
has now given up his foolishness, and is contemplating the sad effect 
it had upon his suspenders. ■ 



There's a divinity tliat sliapes our ends rougli, 
. Hew them liow we will. 



SECOND DISTRICT NORMAL SCHOOL. 



63 



LETTERS AND EXTRACTS PROM LETTERS READ AT THE 

REUNION. 

Shippensburg, Yd.., July i6, 1878. 
Mr. J. Zeamer : 

Dear Sir : Am sorry that ill-health will prevent my being at com- 
mencement. Be kind enough to convey my regrets to our class- 
mates. It would have afforded me much pleasure to meet them and 
renew former friendships and associations, but I must forego this 
pleasure and submit to disappointment. Would like to request of 
you that if the history is not published, you will send it to me by 
mail, I will read and return it to you, and pay the postage both 
ways. If it is published, of course I desire a copy, and will bear 
my portion of the cost of publication. 

Hope you may all have a delightful time. Be kind enough, also, 
to convey my kindest regards to all who may inquire concerning me. 

Would it not be a good idea to continue the historian, and ar- 
range for another reunion ten years hence ? 
Very truly your friend, 

G. H. SLAYBAUGH. 

Manayunk, YYixV z.. , July , 16, 1878. 
Members of the Class of 1868 in Reunion Assembled : 

Dear Friends and Classmates : I had hoped to participate in 
the joys of this Normal home-gathering, but events have taken such 
a course that it seems impracticable. I will have to trust to my 
worthy chum of Normal days, and neighbor of boyhood days, at 
present the honored principal of Point Breeze Consolidated School, 
Philadelphia, to do justice to my share of speech-making, music, 
refreshments, etc. I am sure the class have not lost sight of his 
ability in such respects. 

The ministry, I am sure, will be well represented, and, if I mis- 
take not, will tower above all other professions, in the person of the 
worthy pastor of the Methodist church of Guthriesville ; and if 
any of the bachelors of the class should find themselves in need of 
ministerial services, I feel sure he will gladly assist them. 



Wednesday evening my people spend regularly in our church 
prayer meeting. I shall tell them that my class are at the same hour 



64 



CLASS OF i86S. 



rejoicing in having reached an important out-look on life's journey, 
and I know that earnest prayers will be offered for blessings to at- 
tend the journey through. May heaven's blessing attend us all ; 
may the experience of the decade passed remain with us as a perma- 
nent possession of wisdom. In our varied locations, belting our 
own land, aye, encircling the globe, as we, in the hour of reunion, 
grasp the hand of our missionary sister beyond the seas, may we, 
in our growth in real manhood and womanhood, and in our in- 
fluence upon others, be constantly gathering treasures for the re- 
union of all who obtain the diploma, "Well done" in life's 
school. 

Yours in the brotherhood of '68, 

W. W. COOK. 

Halifax, V\.,July 12, 1878. 
Mr. J. Zeamer ; 

Dear Sir : Your communication to Mrs. Dungan asking for ad- 
ditional information was received to-day. 

I know you will pardon her seeming negligence, when you learn 
that on Thursday evening, June 27, there came to the parsonage 
two little visitors, a girl and a boy. 

The babes and their mother are doing well, but Mrs. D. is still 
unable to resume her correspondence. It will, therefore, be neces- 
sary for you to use the information already sent, imperfect though 
it may be. 

She wishes, through you, to send greetings to her classmates; 
wishing you all a happy reunion. She will be with you in spirit, 
though not in person. 

Yours, respectfully, 

J. DUNGAN. 



Spring BrooK Farm, 
Ellis, Ellis County, Kansas, 7, 13, 187S. 
J. Zeamer and Fellow Classmates: 

My Dear Zeamer: Unfortunately, yours of the tst and 2d both 
came to hand yesterday eve, July 12, so I fear this letter will not 
reach the old Normal in time to answer for my absence. Am glad 
to learn that so many can be present. I wish I could imagine who 
out of our thirty-five will be there. I would have the ''Cook" 
serve up a "Rich" and first-class ."Desch.'' You might have 



SECOXD DISTRICT NORMAL SCHOOL. 65 

thrown a little "Lyte*" on the subject " Fore" me, but as you did 
not, I am compelled to sit down in the " Gable " end of my " dug 
out" and try to "Pierce" the future far enough to guess who are 
there. As our modest little "Ruth" has developed into quite a 
singer, I want him and " Oberholtzer," the other George, to sing 
" Swinging in the Lane," with " Bruckart " and " Steacy " to make 
up the quartette. Since "Lincoln" was assassinated, and " John- 
son " came so near being impeached, our beloved country has been 
under e.Kcitement, particularly from the " Hudson " to the " James." 
Now that " Hayes' " title is being established, I hope it will be a 
" Barr " to any future proceeding. Have "Marsden," of the Old 
Page, and "Bartleson," of the Normal, each deliver a declamation 
to the class on the subject of dogs, and I will give as a prize to the 
best deliverer a beautiful little prairie dog, to be delivered here. If 
"Slaybaugh" ever gets the " Overholt " on McMullen, some one 
will get a fall. I am not much of a " Weaver," so my letter must 
fall short of a notice of our jolly twins, "Serrill" and "Richards," 
while " Stover " and " Evans " will have to be slighted. I learned 
several years since that our "Maggie Davis" has passed from labor 
to rewards. " So mote it be." 

Now, "Zeamer," I know you will all be thirsty at your supper, 
and Millersville water is poor stuff to drink, so I propose that you 
send our class-" Brewer " down to Spruce Creek, where Mc- 
Pherran used to live, and have her brew you some nice spruce beer; 
then call "Anno Domini Eisenhower" to reply to the toast. Ten 
years have l)een numbered with those of the past. The future is 
before us. In the ne,\t ten years "what shall the harvest be?" I 
must now bid you all "Bye," "Bye," and I will leave you to the 
tender care of " Cornell," who I hear is a preacher. 

Yours truly, 

BEN. C. RICH. 

P. S. Don't forget to remember me to our dear friend Professor 
Edward Brooks. There is always a tender spot in my heart for him. 

B. C. R. 



■ * Little Lytes are scarce. — Hist. 



66 CL.-iSS OF i8b8. 



From Mrs. B. llattie Jones, nee Hayes. 

How time hurries ! Ten yeais since we graduated ! I hope that 
life has been as kind to you and the rest of my classmates during 
these years as it has been to me. * * * * 

It will be impossible for me to be with you in person at our re- 
union, but in fancy I shall meet you all again. How changed you 
will find all things when you get back! "Only the birds and the 
bees and the waving trees will be singing their same old song." 
New faces will be everywhere, and you will think of old familiar 
ones that used to look upon you with their kindly greetings in the 
dear old halls, in the recitation rooms, in every familiar spot that 
your fancy can conjure up, and you will involuntarily sigh for the 
" lang syne" and the friends that are gone. How the class of 1878 
will look at the one of 1868, and wonder and surmise what their 
thoughts are, and how they must feel to return to \.\\t\r A/ma Mater, 
after so many long years of absence and change. Yet they in turn 
will be sighing for the golden hours flown, and the class of 1888 
will look and wonder as they now, and so it will be endlessly. 

In my fancy, I see you all just as ycu were ten years ago. To me 
your faces look no older, and bear no more marks of care. You 
are all as buoyant and full of hope and strong resolution to succeed 
as you were then. In reality this cannot be. Time will be no 
kinder to us than to the balance of the world. Many hopes that 
gladdened us then lie dead now, but for all of us, I trust, sweeter, 
brighter hopes than the buried ones have sprung from their dust, 
and that we with less confidence in ourselves, and more in the wis- 
dom that never errs, we can say: God always knows best, always 
does best. 

Fannie James writes me that the class will practice some of their 
old songs to sing. There is one I want them to sing for me. We 
all sang it when we were in the librar}- waiting for the committee to 
come in at final e.xamination. It is : " Row, row, row your boat," 
&c. You need not sing more than one stanza unless you wish to, 
but sing the one commencing : ' ' Time in his rapid, remorseless flight," 
and sing it with particular emphasis on" the last two lines. 

I had intended to send some special messages of love and remem- 
brance to certain members of my class, but, as I write, the same 
message goes to all. My heart knows no difference in its sincere re- 
gard and well wishes for the future of them all. So I reach my 



SECOND DISTRICT .VORMAL SCHOOL. 



67 



hand in greeting to you to-day, and am proud to be your classmate 
and friend. 

Very truly, 

E. Hattie Jones. 



I am now living in Chambersburg, Franklin county, Pa., where 
I shall be glad to extend the hand of welcome at any time to all of 
my classmates, former teachers, and any friends that I may have ever 
had at the old Normal. Of course, it would give me pleasure inex- 
pressible to meet Doctor Bartleson, Professor Cornell, Reverend 
Cook, and all the other magnates you mention, but for this time I 
am sorry to say that pleasure must be forgone. -Sincerely hoping 
that the reunion may be attended with the most brilliant success, 
and that you who participate in it may enjoy it, 

I am, 

Yours truly, 

L. C. B. Pk.ather. 



It would certainly be a great pleasure t" meet the members of our 
class in the old halls after so long a separation. During the ten 
years that have elapsed I have only met with one of our number, 
Sallie Richards, who visited me last summer. 

It will no doubt be very interesting to learn the history of all our 
class during the oast ten years, but I will not be able to enjoy hear- 
ing it. I feel that circumstair.es make it my duty to forego pleasure 
and remain at home widi my husband, three little girls, and ou' baby 
boy. 

Hoping that you may have a very pleaSt^nt time at the reuni'^n, 
and that nothing unpleasant may occur to mar your eiijoyn^ent, with 
many kind wishes for all my old friends present, 
I remain, 

Your old classniate, 

N. J. Douglas. 



On the evening of the i6th of July, 1878, just ten years, to the 
day, after their graduation, eleven of the class of 1868 assembled in 
recitaHon room No. 13, at the Millersville State Normal School. 
There were present ; iVIessrs. Cornell, Lyte, Overholt, Ruth, Weaver, 



68 



CLASS OF iS6S. 



and Zeamer, and Misses Bnickart, Davis, James, Beil Johnston, and 
Mrs. Anna. L. Field. Mr. W. D. Weavei was called to the chair, 
the author of the motion giving as his reason the fact that Mr. Wea- 
was the only bachelor now left in the class, and it would, therefore, 
be advisable to trot him out upon this occasion at every favorahle 
opportunity, so the ladies could inspect him. Informal discussions 
were had upon the various modes of enjoj. ment and entertainment 
for those of the class who would be present to attend tlie reunion. 
The hour of 5 p. m. the next day was agreed upon to have a supper, 
and a committee was appointed to call forthwith upon Mrs. Shank 
to see whether the necessary provision had been made. Another com- 
mittee was appointed to see and request Di . and Mi*. Brooks to honor 
the class with their presence at the festive occasion. 

The historian made a statement in regard to the history. The 
amount of matter collected and prepared, if the class decided to pub- 
lish it, would make a pamphelet of about forty pages, and a clcse esti- 
mate of the cost, on the basis of one hundred copies, placed the mat- 
ter of publishing the work within easy reach of the means of the 
class. A free expression of opi'^ion upon the subject was called for 
and given unanimously in favor of publishing. Tlie historian, how- 
ever, requested that no definite action be taken until the history was 
read, and others of the class, who would be present the next day, had 
had an opportunity to vote upon the question. He believed he had 
succeeded in working up their history into a form very nearly satis- 
factory, as he had sent one sketch to the subject thereof for revision 
and correction, and it was returned with but one word cut out, yet 
he desired that all should know what was proposed to be put into 
print. A committe was appointed to canvass and ascertain who 
were willing to contribute towards defraying the expenses. Mr. 
Weaver was unanimously selected as master of the ceremonies for the 
next evening. 

After the meeting adjourned, the class, joined by Mr. Gable, met 
Dr. Brooks in his elegant new office, so strangely in contrast with 
his former one, where, nearly a dozen years before, they were wont 
to meet Prp/. Brooks. Time had furrowed his cheeks, wrinkled his 
brow, and sprinkled the silver freely into his hair, but a decade of 
years had not impaired his kindly grasp, or dried friendship's mois- 
ture from his eye, and when he spoke to welcome them cordially 
back to the Normal Halls, the voice was the same, so was the smile. 
The rough realities and the rudeness of the unfeeling world had 



SECOND DISTRICT NORMAL SCHOOL. 



69 



been encountered, but the heart of the teacher and the hearts of the 
pupils were happily found to be still in tune, so their greetings were 
mutual and sincere. Thenceforth they felt perfectly at home, and 
acted according, just as they did in the days of yore. 

At noon the next day, came Bartleson and McMullen, and before 
evening Evans, Barr. and Desch also fell into ranks, swelling the 
number present to seventeen. Six of them, Bartleson, Barr, Desch, 
Lyte, Overholt, and Zeamer had ladies along, to whom they 
familiarly applied their own names, although much too young to be 
their mothers, nor were they their brothers' wives. 

At one, P. M., on the 17th, an alumni business meeting was held 
in the Model School chapel, which adjourned in time to meet in 
the spacious new Normal chapel, at half past two. Here a very 
fair audience was agreeably entertained by an address from Dr. I. 
G. Heilman, of the class of '67; an essay on "William Cullen 
Bryant," from Miss Blanche McCullough, of the class of '75, and 
an oration on "Erroneous Ideas of Liberty," from I. G. Witmyer, 
of the class of '71. At the close of these, Watson Cornell, of the 
class of '68, by request, sang "The Friar of Orders Gray," accom- 
panied on the piano by Miss Fannie D. James. Wats, was nifty 
on a sing when yet a student, but an almost ten-year experience as 
a Philadelphia chorister, has polished his powers, and given him 
wonderful proficiency as a vocalist. The audience appreciated good 
music, and were not to be satisfied with one piece, so they gave him 
such a hearty encore as would tickle the vanity of any man, except 
Wats. He then sang " Sleep Well Sweet Angel," accompanied by 
Miss Lucy J. Warner, one of the Normal music teachers. This 
piece was equally well receiv-ed, but as the weather was almost in- 
tolerably hot, no attempt was made to encore him again, the audience 
having discounted the vigorous demonstration required to move a 
modest man a second time. The public exercises ended, the alumni 
again assembled in the Model School chapel in business session for 
a sh<irt time, and at five, p. m., adjourned, to meet again at seven. 
The class of '68 then formed and marched in open order down the 
lane to Shank's. On arriving, the historian called the party around 
him, waited a while for their noise to stop, then read to them letters 
and extracts from letters from some of the absent ones, bearing 
greetings to those assembled in reunion. Supper being then an- 
nounced, the party proceeded to arrange themselves around the 
tables. At table No. i. Weaver sat at the head, as master of cere- 



70 



CLASS OF i86S. 



monies, first on the right Dr. Brooks, then Mrs. Brooks, Barr, Mrs. 
Lyte, Dr. Bartleson, Mrs. Bartleson, Desch, Mrs. Desch, Mc- 
Muhen, Miss Davis, Mrs. Barr, Lyte, and Miss Bruckart. At table 
No. 2, Rev. Gable sat at the head, then to the right Overholt, Mrs. 
Overholt, Cornell, Miss James, Zeamer, Mrs. Zeamer, MisLj John- 
ston, Mrs. Field, and Evans. 

After prayer was offered by the Rev. I. M. Gable, all proceeded 
to the business next in order, paying due appreciation to Mrs. 
Shank's highly successful labors. This done, Mr. Weaver rose in 
his place, and after calling the class to order, remarked : 

"It is proper, on such occasions, not only to enjoy a feast, but 
to have sentiments from those present. All of us feel a deep in- 
terest in the success and happiness of each and every member of 
the class of 1868, and on this occasion, looking over our past his- 
tory, we deem it not vanity to feel proud of our record. A decade 
of years we have labored, and now we return to pay tribute to our 
Alma Mater. All of us remember our day of graduation, from 
which the historian has sketched our history, the goklen milestone 
and central point from wliich he has measured every distance through 
the gateways of the world around us. Classmates, as a mark of 
personal esteem and friendship, let us now drink to the health of 
Dr. and Mrs. Brooks." 

To this Dr. Brooks responded in a happy and entertaining speech, 
characteristic of the man, highly eulogistic of the class of 1868, 
with whom he expressed himself well pleased. They had done well. 

"Our Alunmi," wa-s responded to by . Prof. E. O. Lyte. 

"The Class of 1868," Prof. W. F. Overholt. 

"The Ministry," ... . Rev. I. M. Gable. 

"The Medical Profession," Dr. H. C. Bartleson. 

" The Legal Profession," . . D. MeMullen, Esq., and W. C. Evau.s, Esq. 
"Tlie Common Schools of Penn.sj'lvania," . . . . Prof. George. H. Desch. 

"The Progress of Invention," J. N. Barr, Esq. 

"Tlie Maidens of 'G8," .... Fannie D. James, and Hattie I. Bruckart. 

" Literary Societies," Prof. George C. Rvxth. 

"The Absent," Mrs. Annie L. Field. 

"The Wedded," Prof. AVatsoa Cornell. 

Here some one in tlie party proposed drinking tiie 

health of tlie only Ijachelor of the class, which called 

forth a response from W. D. Weaver, Esq. 

"Prophecy," was responded to by J. Zeamer, E.sq. 

These pleasantries over, the class retired to the shaded lawn, where 
they were called to order by Chairman Weaver, and the propriety 



SECOND DISTRICT NORMAL SCHOOL. 



71 



of publishing the history discussed. The historian made a statement 
of the probable cost of the work, and, after some considei-ation, it 
was decided to have two hundred copies published, and that five 
copies be sent to each member of the class. A committee was 
appointed to apportion the expense, which assessed each member 
one dollar and twenty cents, proceeded at once to collect, and in a 
short time reported progress by passing considerable cash over to 
the historian. A vote of thanks was also tendered to the historian 
for the efficient manner in which he had performed his duties, and 
as an earnest of their sincerity, his classmates unanimously reelected 
him for another term of ten years, without any reduction of salary. 
It was also decided to hold another reunion in 1888. The party 
then, in the same admirable, unstudied, open order they had come 
in, wended their way back to the Normal, and shortly after arriving 
there the alumni again convened in Model School chapel, to listen 
to the reading of the histories of the classes of 1866 and 1868 Miss 
Mary M. Martin read the former, occupying about one hour, with 
the mercury humming "ninety and nine." The historian of the 
class of 1868 then took the floor, and, in a very nervous condition, 
rapidly read the history of his class, stopping at intervals to take 
breath and mop the perspiration from his streaming face. He occu- 
pied more than an hour and a half. Before he was quite through, 
it was nece.ssary for Dr. Brooks to excuse himself, to meet an en- 
gagement, but before going he publicly announced that he author- 
ized Mr. Zeamer to make an estimate of how many more copies 
would be required to supply the alumni, have them printed and sent 
to him, and he would pay the additional cost. A few minutes before 
being called upon to read, some unknown friend handed the histo- 
rian a letter through the window. This proved to be a greeting to 
the class by Ben. C. Rich, of Trego county, Kansas. The reading 
of the history concluded, the historian made it known that a Rich 
letter had been received, and if desired he would lead it. The 
response was " aye," "aye." So, late on the hot evening of the 
17th of July, 1878, a long while after the retiring bells had been 
rung, the decennial reunion of the class of 1868 closed with the read- 
ing of a highly appreciated epistle from Ben. C. Rich. 



During their visit to the Normal, the members of the class and the 
alumni generally were received and entertained in a most courteous 
and indulgent manner. Pains were taken by the authorites to learn 



72 CLASS OF xS68. 



what was necessary for their comfort and enjoyment, and every want, 
on becoming known, promptly suppHed. These kindly attentions 
aroused into new life the love and veneration for the- old Normal, 
that the lapse of years and the cares of life had allowed to cool, and 
as they bade adieu and turned their backs again upon the old famil- 
iar place, their hearts silently said : 

"We'll stand by our Alma Mater for she stands by us." 

As the members of the class who met in reunion on the i yth of 
July, 1878, saw fit to reelect us as historian for another term of ten 
years, " or during the war," we hereby request all of the class to 
keep us informed of their whereabouts. Should any of them change 
location or occupation, or any of the lonely ones contract matri- 
monial alliances, we hope they will consider it their duty to keep 
the historian promptly and fully informed, for only by their assist- 
ance can he hope to be successful, and the measure of his success 
will be proportionate to their aid. It is not alone his work, it is 
theirs as well, and for their sakes fully as much as for his own does 
he respectfully ask their help. 

Seventeen of the graduating essays and orations are now in his 
hands, which are to him an interesting and highly prized collection. 
He would like to have this collection complete, or as nearly so as 
it is possible to make it, and to that end desires all who have not 
already sent in theirs, to do so early. This is not done with a view 
of publishing them, but to have copies of those relics of our gradu- 
ating day in a common receptacle for reference and inspection. 
Our historical department would also be greatly enhanced in value 
were each of the class, as they publish books, as some of them have 
done, or any newspaper or magazine articles of special interest, to 
send specimen copies to the historian to put into this common lot. 
We also suggest that whenever newspapers comment upon anything 
any of them did, either they or some one of the class cut it out and 
send it to the historian, who will paste it into a scrap-book under 
its proper head, and in this manner gradually acquire a record that 
will be very valuable in compiling the history of the class ten years 
hence. 

We further rei[uest that a class photograph album be made up by 
all contributing their own pictures and those of their wives, hus- 
bands, and children, arranged in family groups, the children in 
order of their ages, from the first born down to the "darling baby," 



SECOND DISTRICT NORMAL SCHOOL. 



73 



all properly labeled, so it will be known at a glance whose property 
they are. Should this idea meet the approval of the different mem- 
bers of the class, and such album be provided and placed in our 
hands as custodian, we will do our best to make the collection, to 
keep it up to the times, and have it present at the meetings of the 
alumni and reunions of the class, and when it becomes necessary 
or desirable to elect a new historian, these archives shall be promptly 
handed to our successor. 

At graduation, thirty-two of the class were residents of Pennsyl- 
vania, one of Illinois, and three of Maryland. At present, twenty- 
five reside in Pennsylvania, two in Maryland, three in Kansas, two 
in Iowa, one in Illinois, one in Alabama, and one in Tokio, Japan. 
Of the fifteen ladies, eight are now married, and have fifteen chil- 
dren, nine of whom are girls, and six boys. One of the gentlemen, 
Mr. Edward Stover, is dead. Of the other twenty, all are married 
but one, and have twenty-two children living, twelve of whom are 
boys, and ten girls. Two children born to the class are dead ; there 
may be more, but these are all that have thus far been reported to 
the historian. Of the thirty-seven children living, two, a boy and 
a girl, are twins. It will be remembered that two members of the 
class are twin sisters, so the class is not degenerating in this respect. 

Of the seven single ladies, three are still engaged — at teaching ; 
three have relinquished it to engage in the varied duties of home, 
in leisure, and in travel, one, especially, may with propriety be con- 
sidered the tourist of the class, and one is beyond the seas engaged 
in missionary work. 

Five of the class are Episcopalians, five Methodists, one an Evan- 
gelical Methodist, three Presbyterians, two inclined to the Friends, 
two are Lutherans, one a Dutch Reformed, one a Baptist, one a 
Moravian, one Church of God, eight have not been heard from on 
their religious preferences, and five do not belong to any church, 
but some of them have preferences. Many of them are also very 
active in Sunday-school work. 

Five of the gentleman use tobacco, two smoke and chew, and 
three only smoke ; eight abstain from its use entirely, and the rest 
have failed to inform us how they stand in regard to the weed. 
Fourteen vote the Republican ticket, two claim to be independent 
in politics, and four are Democrats. All that gave us their prefer- 
ences on the money question favor hard money and resumption, ex- 
cepting one, who says he does not know what the terms mean, and 



74 



CLASS OF rSbS. 



has met no one yet who has been able to define them. Two are for 
silver absolutely, and only one qualifiedly. The status of the class 
on the money question may be considered hopeful, being indicative 
of good sense, sound judgment, economy, and honesty. Good 
money and good morals are closely related. 

Those who have not yet reported themselves on these questions 
will confer a special favor by doing so soon. 

We also suggest that whenever any anecdotes, droll experiences, 
or pleasing reminiscences of our school-days recur to the minds of 
any of tne class, they write them down and transmit them to us for 
record. They will improve with age, for as the years accumulate 
upon them, interest in them will increase. Any suggestions that 
any member of the class may have in regard to our future history, 
will be thankfully received and carefully noted. We hold in most 
grateful appreciation the assistance, sympathy, and encouragement 
rendered us by many of the class, and hope that when all of them 
see the evidence of our hard and sincere efforts to do what we un- 
derstood to be our duty in the matter, they will deal out blame 
sparingly. 

You have here a pretty complete record of the class for the past 
ten years. Misfortune may have smitten some, but grievous faults 
can not be laid to their charge. Possibly, the record may be want- 
ing in acts of great and startling brilliancy, but all in all it is 
strongly characterized by that steady, plodding, promising progress, 
that seldom fails to reach great and noble attainments, and is such 
a one as any young class may well be proud of. 

May God grant that none of the thirty-five may ever be the author 
of deeds, or a party to associations, that their historian need hesi- 
tate to record, or any one blush to read ! 



FINIS. 




uiDKHKir U(- CONGRESS 



2 019 740 274 fi 



